


Knight and Squire 3: Crestless

by purple_bookcover



Series: Knight and Squire [5]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Annette/Felix, Dimitri/Dedue, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, Post-Canon, all of these relationships will at least get a passing mention, annette/ashe, annette/petra, claude/Lorenz, cyril/ashe, dorothea/petra - Freeform, ingrid/sylvain, marianne/hilda - Freeform, they're poly ok it's chaos, unrequited Sylvix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:47:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 52,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24899416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_bookcover/pseuds/purple_bookcover
Summary: * This is primarily and mostly an Ashelix fic. Other ships are tagged because they ARE relevant to the plot. *This is the FINAL installment of Knight and Squire. It started with a shameful closet fuck. Now Ashe and Felix are trying to save a world that has shattered in unimaginable ways.Knight and Squire 1Knight and Squire 2
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: Knight and Squire [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1525064
Comments: 119
Kudos: 30





	1. Fear and Healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The situation in the underground is not great in the wake of the battle. The amount of refugees seeking shelter from the gods tearing apart the continent is straining resources.
> 
> Everyone meets to try to figure out how they're going to kill a god. Afterward, Ashe pays a private visit to Cyril.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! The LAST book. If you missed it, this is the third part of Knight and Squire.
> 
> \- You can find [Knight and Squire 1 here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20711285/chapters/49199699)  
> \- You can find [Knight and Squire 2 here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21198629/chapters/50462273)
> 
> If you haven't read these, boy, are you gonna be confused. 
> 
> I'm so excited to embark on the final stretch of this massive, massive project. Imagine me thinking this was a oneshot?

“Well, that seems bad.”

In the days since the battle that shattered the world, things had only gotten worse. 

Ashe reached for Felix’s hand on one side and Annette’s on the other as they passed through the halls of the underground. Annette squeezed Ashe’s hand as she accepted it; Felix merely held on, solid and stable. 

It was difficult to navigate as a trio through the crowded halls. Claude had opened the underground to everyone who needed refuge after the battle. Soldiers from both sides, the non-combatants already living in the underground, even stragglers from villages and towns nearby who’d had nowhere else to run – they’d all appeared at the underground in the days and weeks that followed the battle and Claude hadn’t turned a single person away. 

It made for cramped quarters and strained the limited infrastructure and resources. But everyone pitched in where they could. Ashe could hardly remember a day he hadn’t spent almost entirely in the kitchen, cooking whatever they had, whatever they could scrounge together. The meals were getting more watery over time. Ashe did what he could to thicken them up, make them more filling, but every hungry face gnawed at him. 

They passed several on their way through the halls. Ashe could do nothing for them. There were just so many people and none of them could leave this place now, not with a dragon stomping around over their heads.

They heard the beast often, a daily reminder of their predicament. Its footsteps shook the stone. Its roars rumbled the pillars and scaffolding. 

They couldn’t go on like this much longer. Ashe knew it; everyone knew it. But that’s why Ashe, Felix and Annette were headed to the war room.

Even this place was crowded. Claude’s war room had been meant for his trusted advisors and they were all still present: Hilda looking bored, Marianne looking terrified, Lorenz scowling, Linhardt with his head against his folded arms like he might sleep, Cyril alert and attentive. But they were no longer Claude’s only resources. Besides Felix, Ashe and Annette, Claude also had additional visitors. 

Sylvain and Ingrid looked toward the door when Ashe entered with his companions. Ashe caught a flicker of hope in Sylvain’s eyes, but it vanished when Sylvain turned his gaze to Felix.

Ashe grimaced. A problem for another time, perhaps. 

For now, the trio took up a position at the back of the room, standing close but no longer holding hands. 

“Great,” Claude said, “that’s all of us.” He was standing at the head of the table, hands planted on the wood, hunching forward. No longer did he sit with casual confidence or lean nonchalantly against the wall. It made Ashe’s stomach twist. Even Claude von Reigan was nervous.

“Let’s not waste time,” Claude said. “Seiros knows we have little enough of it to spare.” He laughed darkly at himself at the mention of the goddess’ name. 

“Anyway,” he went on, “we need to sort out this dragon.”

“We also need food,” Lorenz said. “Water. Clothing. Blankets. Basic necessities.”

“I know,” Claude said, “but none of that can happen while that _thing_ is bearing down on us every day.”

“But--”

“Listen,” Claude cut in, “I know we’re barely holding together down here. Trust me, I’m well aware. But every problem we’re facing really comes down to big, scaly and ugly up there. I can’t get more food until I can get hunters and foragers aboveground. I can fix the pipes until someone can _access_ the damn pipes. We simply won’t have what we need until that dragon is out.

“So. Problem number one and the reason you’re all here: How do we go about killing a god?”

Silence chased Claude’s words. Not even Lorenz challenged Claude’s assessment. How could he? Claude was right. There was only one solution to their problems and they all knew it. 

“Can I just ask something?” Hilda said. 

Claude nodded.

“What are _they_ doing here?”

Every head turned toward Sylvain and Ingrid. Sylvain shifted, scratching at his hair. Ingrid folded her arms under her chest, her lips tightening into a thin line. 

“I’m not going to turn anyone away,” Claude said.

“Even them?” Hilda said.

“Even them.”

“They’re our enemies, Claude. It’s their fault we’re even stuck like this.”

“Hey, I have an idea,” Linhardt said. “Let’s use them as bait.”

“Not bad,” Hilda said. 

“Stop it.” Claude’s voice was unusually sharp, sobering Hilda and even Linhardt. “We’re not sacrificing anyone. We’re not turning anyone away. And we are _not_ using our people as bait.”

“They are not our people, though,” Lorenz said.

“They’re no less your people than we are.” 

Everyone turned to Felix when he spoke. He hadn’t raised his voice, but everyone’s attention snapped toward him. 

Felix folded his arms tight; Ashe could tell he hated the scrutiny. But he took a step forward, addressing the room.

“The war is over,” Felix said, “and we lost. All of us. We can kill that fucking thing or we can die. Save your petty grievances for later.”

“Succinct,” Claude said. “But I like it.”

Lorenz and Hilda gave Claude withering looks, but didn’t complain further. 

Claude pushed away from the table. “So, how are we killing this thing?”

#

“How” proved an elusive question. Ashe left feeling uneasy with the plan they’d crafted, yet he couldn’t think of any better solution.

He left with Felix and Annette, relieved to be out of the room and away from the tense meeting. But his relief was short-lived. Sylvain ran to catch up with them, Ingrid fast on his heels. 

“Hey,” Sylvain said. “Thanks for sticking up for us.”

“I didn’t,” Felix said. “I merely moved past a stupid argument so we could actually get something done.”

Sylvain’s lips twisted in a scowl. “Sure, well, whatever it was, I appreciate it.” 

Felix opened his mouth to retort, but Ashe reached out, stilling him with a light touch to his arm. 

“No problem,” Ashe said. “I just hope we can all work together.”

Sylvain turned his attention to Ashe as though seeing him for the first time. “Right.” 

He looked between Ashe and Felix for a moment, weighing something. Ashe went tense. He wasn’t sure what Sylvain was seeing, what scale he was balancing in his mind, but it left a sour taste in Ashe’s mouth. Ingrid’s cold indifference didn’t help.

Fortunately, Sylvain decided not to push. He turned away, Ingrid at his side as they trailed down a hall and into the crowd.

Ashe let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

“You’re going to have to talk to him eventually,” Annette said. 

Felix muttered under his breath.

“Felix,” she pushed, “this is ridiculous. Get it over with.”

“I have nothing to say,” Felix said. 

Annette sighed, rolling her eyes. “Sure, whatever. I’m gonna start getting ready. Ashe, do you want to join me?”

“Actually,” Ashe said, “I have something I need to take care of.”

Both of his companions snapped their attention toward him. Their gazes were heavy and sharp with concern. He hated the burn of all that anxiety pointed toward him. They were still waiting for him to break, he knew, still searching for cracks. Even understanding it came from a desire to protect him, Ashe sometimes wanted to scream that he was fine, as fine as he could be, at least. 

Instead, he willed patience into his heart. A conversation for another time. A quieter time. 

“It’s OK,” Ashe said. “I promise. I just want to talk to someone.”

“Who?” Felix said.

“Why?” Annette said.

It was all Ashe could do not to roll his eyes.

“It’s just Cyril,” Ashe said. “We fought together in the battle. I’ve got this, OK?”

Felix’s lips tightened. Annette looked away guiltily. 

“Of course,” Felix said, trying to sound casual. “You know where to find us.”

“Yeah,” Ashe said. He offered them a smile he hoped was reassuring before turning away and starting through the underground.

#

It was unusual for anyone to have their own room anymore, but Cyril was one of Claude’s closest advisors now. He’d marshaled the archers in the fight to defend the underground from Dimitri’s army. He’d more than earned a place of prestige.

For all that, there was little luxury to be found in his room. A simple bed. A chest with a couple personal items. A heap of clothing on the floor. A bowl for washing up. That was about all there was to the room Cyril showed Ashe into. 

“Do you want water?” Cyril said. 

Ashe shook his head, sitting at the edge of the bed. 

“Mind if I...” Cyril gestured at the bed.

“Oh! Oh, of course not. Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.” Of course Cyril was being cautious. Before the battle, and even during it, Ashe had given him ample reason to tread lightly. That was half the reason Ashe sought him out today. 

“So what can I do for you?” Cyril said as he sat beside Ashe.

Ashe smiled to himself. Always seeking to do for others. That was one of the things Ashe had loved so much about Cyril when they’d met way back in Ashe’s academy days. 

“Just listen,” Ashe said. “I mean, if you’d like to. I don’t know if you remember this, but I promised you an explanation--”

“Oh, Ashe, you don’t have to, honestly. You don’t owe me any explanation. I trust you.”

“I know,” Ashe said. “I want to. If you want to listen.”

Cyril’s soft brown eyes searched Ashe’s face before he said, “Well, I guess that’s OK. If you’re sure.”

“I am,” Ashe said. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and began.

He skimmed over most of the details, but even so, he felt his heart rate spike when he described being captured during the battle at Enbarr. He was even more sparse with what followed. Even so, Ashe was sweating by the time he described his escape, the awful, lonely time spent in that cell, his miraculous rescue. 

When he got to the part about being saved by Felix, it made the story a little easier to tell. Still, Ashe hurried on. His recovery, running off with Felix and Annette, being caught by Petra, then Sylvain, then Claude. 

“And that’s pretty much how we ended up down here when you saw us,” Ashe finished.

Cyril was silent a moment. He was looking at the floor rather than at Ashe, gripping the edge of the bed. 

“That’s awful,” Cyril said, voice quiet. “Goddess, Ashe, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“It’s OK,” Ashe said.

“It’s not,” Cyril said. “What happened to you isn’t even a little OK.”

“I know,” Ashe said. It was his turn to study the floor. “But it’s OK now. I think. I just wanted you to know. It wasn’t your fault, the way I reacted that one time, the way I was during the battle. None of that was your fault.” 

When Ashe looked up, Cyril was smiling at him. “I understand.”

Ashe sighed. “Well, that was horrible.” He laughed. “Thanks for letting me do this. I never actually told anyone before. I mean, Felix and Annette know, of course, but it’s different to actually, you know, say it.”

Cyril just nodded. 

Ashe stood, feeling self-conscious, needing to expel some of the nervous energy buzzing inside him. Cyril stood as well.

“Hey,” Cyril said, “you did really great out there when we were fighting. You know that, right?”

Ashe just shook his head. The memory of freezing during the battle, panicking, was too fresh in his mind. 

“I’m serious,” Cyril said. “We saved a lot of people. We turned the battle – more than once. Not many soldiers I’d trust with that, ya know? No matter what they’ve been through.”

“Heh, well, thank you.”

Cyril smirked. “The reassurance is just making you doubt yourself more. Hold on a second.”

Cyril went to the chest, rummaging through its contents. He emerged holding a bottle by the neck. “Last one. I assume.” 

Ashe gaped at the wine. “How in the world...”

“Had it from before. Didn’t really have a use for it. But hey, if we’re about to go try to fight a god, we deserve a half-decent drink. What do you say?”

Ashe hesitated, but the longer he looked at the bottle, and Cyril’s earnest, unassuming face, the more he found himself wanting the wine. He nodded and Cyril retrieved two cups. Well, one of them was a cup. The other was just a scrap of metal magically forced into a shape that would hold some liquid. 

It was good enough. Ashe clinked the container against Cyril’s cup before tipping the wine back. It was sharp and bright and sour. From the first drop, it made Ashe feel warm all over.

“Wow, it’s good,” Ashe said.

“It’s from the Aegir region,” Cyril said. 

“How did you get this?”

Cyril shrugged. “I’ve been everywhere. After the monastery fell I just started wandering around.”

“I figured you’d be looking for Rhea.”

“I did,” Cyril said. “At first. But I soon found I just … wanted something different, ya know? It wasn’t that I didn’t care about finding her. I just was finally on my own. I had a wyvern, a weapon, some clothes, some money. For the first time in my life I could actually just do anything I wanted.” 

They settled back on the edge of the bed. 

“So what did you do?” Ashe said.

“A bit of everything. Saw a bunch of places. It got harder as the war went on. I eventually decided I didn’t really want to be part of any side so I went to Almyra.”

Ashe raised his eyebrows. “You went back?”

“Uh huh,” Cyril said. “It wasn’t what I was expecting, to be honest. It was … it was better. I’d had bad experiences there as a child and assumed that was just how things were, but I was wrong.” A smile stole across his face. “I was completely wrong. I’m glad I went and found out for myself.”

“I’m glad you did, too.” 

Cyril’s smile was warm. It added to the heat the wine was spreading through Ashe’s body. He took another sip. 

“More?” Cyril said. 

Ashe nodded and Cyril refilled both their cups. 

“Anyway,” Cyril said, “that’s where Claude found me eventually. He told me what he wanted to do here. You know, the whole thing with taking Fodlan out of the hands of one ruler, giving it to its people. It sounded kinda idealistic, if I’m honest, but Claude’s a charming guy. I said yes.”

“That’s how you ended up as his scout,” Ashe said. 

It wasn’t a question, but Cyril nodded. 

“Are you happy with the choice?” 

Ashe took another gulp of wine as Cyril pondered that question. Ashe couldn’t blame him. It was a hard question, one Ashe had asked himself over and over since the war broke out. There didn’t seem to be any easy “right” choices anymore. 

“I think I am,” Cyril said. “I feel useful here. I feel … like I matter as much as anyone else, like I can actually do something. And I know I can leave any time if I really want to.” 

Ashe nodded. “I understand.”

Cyril looked at him as though evaluating the honesty of that statement. Ashe pushed on: “Knowing you can leave, even if you believe in the cause, makes a big difference. It means you’re choosing every day to be here.” 

Cyril’s smile sobered. He tilted back his cup, hiding his face for a moment. 

“Yeah,” Cyril said. “It does matter, huh?”

A heavy silence fell between them. Ashe stared at the dark liquid in his cup, swirling it around. Even the fumes made his head feel lighter. Perhaps that was why his tongue felt so loose. 

“Cyril, if you could do anything, what would you do?”

“Kiss you.”

Ashe looked up, eyes wide, cheeks flushed from more than the wine. 

Cyril’s eyebrows shot up, but he did not take back what he’d said. 

“O-oh,” Ashe said.

“That’s not why I offered you the wine,” Cyril said. “But, yeah, if you want the truth, there it is.”

“I-I see.” 

Cyril snorted a laugh. “Sorry if that’s a lot to hear. I don’t think it’s actually gonna happen, but sometimes there’s only one boy in the whole monastery who calls you his friend. Sometimes you realize you blush every time he’s around. Sometimes he reappears in your life as a grown man and even more beautiful than you remember.” 

Cyril shrugged, but Ashe’s mouth was hanging open now. 

“You really mean it,” Ashe said. 

“’Course I do. I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable. The wine’s going to my head. Makes ya honest, ya know?”

“I’m not … uncomfortable.”

“You’re not?” 

Ashe shook his head. “No, I just wish I knew a nicer way to say yes.”

It was Cyril’s turn to look shocked. Ashe seized on the moment, pulling Cyril to him by the front of his shirt. 

Cyril’s mouth was sweet from the wine, soft and pliant from surprise, hot with his breath. Ashe leaned into it, though Cyril offered little pressure of his own, letting Ashe take what he wanted with neither resistance nor pressure. 

Ashe eased away. Cyril’s face was flushed, looking youthful in the glow from the wine. 

“I’d … like more of that,” Ashe said. 

Cyril grabbed Ashe’s cup, setting containers on the floor. Then he lunged back up, pulling Ashe with him onto the bed.

They fell sideways in each other’s arms. Their mouths slammed back together, the hesitation gone now that the desire had been spoken aloud. 

Ashe surrendered to the chaos of the moment, letting the wine wash away stray thoughts, just enjoying the feel of lips against his, hands exploring his neck, his shoulders, the edge of his shirt. Cyril reached up under the fabric, running his hand over Ashe’s bare skin. 

Ashe gasped and Cyril flinched back. 

“Shit, sorry, is that OK?” Cyril said. 

Ashe responded by sitting up, pulling his shirt off over his head and placing Cyril’s hands back on his body. 

Ashe swung a leg over Cyril’s hips, straddling him. Cyril gazed up at him, mouth still slack as his fingers trailed over Ashe’s torso. 

Cyril sat up, holding Ashe in his lap, tucking his hair behind his ear. He watched Ashe as though afraid Ashe might disappear on a breeze. Some part of Ashe hated it. It was that same timidity, that same excessive caution, that same fear that he might break. 

Maybe Ashe wanted to break. At least tonight. 

He shoved Cyril down, hard, pinned his wrists above his head, then dove for his neck, sucking at the exposed skin, licking over the places where he bit. Cyril gasped, bucking under Ashe. Ashe could feel his excitement every time Cyril jerked his hips upward and ground down against it, making Cyril groan. 

Ashe broke away, looking down at Cyril, still pressing his wrists into the mattress. Cyril’s breaths were ragged. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. 

“Clothes,” Ashe said.

Cyril nodded, apparently incapable of speaking. They both scrambled up, undoing laces, tearing at buttons, tossing pants and shirts and underthings across the room, heedless of where they fell. Cyril leapt off the bed, snatching a bottle of oil from the chest, throwing it onto the mattress. Ashe quivered at the implications. He wasn’t even sure where exactly this was going, but he suddenly had a few ideas. 

Ashe watched Cyril return to the bed. He was leaner and harder than Ashe remembered, built of corded muscle honed on battlefields. His thighs were powerful from riding a wyvern, his shoulders strong from pulling a bow over and over. 

Ashe reached for Cyril before he returned to the bed, snatching him close, dragging Cyril’s mouth back to his lips. Cyril murmured around the kiss, clawing at Ashe’s back. 

Cyril broke off abruptly, then laid flat on the bed. “Come here,” he said.

Ashe clambered over him. Cyril stroked Ashe’s cock, angling it at his mouth. Ashe positioned so Cyril could get it in his mouth, struggling not to whimper as Cyril’s lips closed around him.

At first, Cyril ran his mouth up and down Ashe, accentuating his efforts with his tongue. But soon Ashe started to join him, shifting his hips to fuck into Cyril’s mouth. Cyril made some noise that shivered through Ashe’s cock right up into his belly. That small little sound of pleasure made Ashe want to thrust even harder. 

But there was other business to attend to. 

Ashe pulled back. Cyril looked confused, potentially upset at the loss of Ashe’s dick in his mouth. Ashe just shimmied backwards, down Cyril’s body, sitting on his thighs.

Ashe looked up at Cyril as he started pumping the man’s cock. Cyril’s eyes fluttered shut, head lilting back onto the mattress. 

“Fuck, that’s good, Ashe,” Cyril said. 

Ashe reached for the oil with one hand, still stroking with the other. He poured it sloppily, but it was good enough for the task. 

Cyril looked up again at that, pushing up onto his arms. 

“You’re sure?” Cyril said.

Again that timidity, that fear. But this time it was completely one sided. Ashe wasn’t afraid. His heart thrummed with excitement, not anxiety. He didn’t fear Cyril’s hands on his body; he longed for them.

Ashe nodded, biting at his lip as he reached back to run slick fingers around his rim. 

Cyril put up no further protest, eyes tracing Ashe with greed as Ashe got a finger inside himself. Ashe felt a sudden desire to exaggerate. With Felix it was almost a matter of habit at this point. But Cyril was looking at him like some new, miraculous species of animal. 

Ashe held back a smirk, gnawing at his lip as he got fingers inside himself. He made a show of groaning and pushing against his own hand. It felt good, that was true, but he didn’t _quite_ need all the noise he made as he opened himself up. 

“Goddess have mercy,” Cyril said. “Ashe, I need you.”

Ashe removed his fingers, crawling forward to get Cyril’s cock angled toward his hole. “Then lie there and take me.”

Cyril flushed an even deeper red. Ashe lowered onto his cock. Goddess, it was almost too easy to get it inside. His body was so eager for this.

A pleasant heat pushed into Ashe, building the farther Ashe lowered himself. He planted his hands on Cyril’s torso, easing himself down, taking Cyril in inch by inch. 

Cyril gave a little jerk near the end. It jolted his cock the rest of the way into Ashe, who straightened up and gasped.

“S-sorry,” Cyril said. “Eager.”

Ashe’s smile curled. Cyril wasn’t being delicate anymore, finally. He hitched his hips, grinding back against Cyril, who tilted his head back, letting out a long moan.

Cyril reached for Ashe’s thighs as Ashe started to bounce up and down on his cock, riding him into the mattress. Ashe closed his eyes, forgetting everything but the present moment. He drove Cyril’s cock deeper into his ass, pushing out thoughts of gods and armies and concerned gazes. None of it mattered, at least for now. 

Cyril’s hands tightened on Ashe’s thighs, fingers digging in. Ashe responded by scraping his nails down Cyril’s chest. Cyril made a noise like a hiss, then jerked his hips up to meet Ashe’s ass. Their skin slapped against each other as Ashe fucked himself on Cyril’s cock, the clap almost as loud as their ragged breaths and broken moans. 

“It’s gonna happen,” Cyril said. “Shit, it’s coming.” 

Ashe pressed himself down, getting Cyril’s cock as deep as he could take it as heat filled his ass. Cyril let out a choked cry, squeezing Ashe’s thighs, his whole body trembling as he released inside Ashe. 

He’d hardly finished before he started urging Ashe off him. For an instant, Ashe was worried something was wrong, even as warm cum dribbled out of him and down his leg. Cyril nudged Ashe closer to his face, then started pumping his cock. 

“Are you close?” Cyril rasped.

Even with his concentration momentarily broken, Ashe nodded. The second Cyril’s sure hand started stroking up and down his cock, Ashe was filled to the brim with heat. Even the bit leaking out of him wasn’t enough to sate the fire building inside him. 

“Good,” Cyril said. 

He redoubled his efforts to jerk Ashe, but the head of Ashe’s cock was pointed right at Cyril’s face. Ashe gripped the bedsheets, trying to hang on long enough to warn Cyril, but every time he tried to speak it came out as quivering whines instead of words. 

“It’s OK,” Cyril said. “Do it like this.”

Ashe let out a deeper whine as understanding dawned. Cyril didn’t let up for an instant, dragging Ashe toward the edge. 

Even so, Ashe tried to warn him. A choked “soon,” Cyril’s breathy “yeah” and then Ashe went rigid, spilling onto Cyril’s face, trembling as his body seemed to empty of tension all at once. 

Ashe panted over Cyril for a few long breaths, eyes still closed, body quivering. He heard a hum and opened his eyes to see Cyril beneath him, face sprayed with cum, eyes shut, his smile blissful as he dabbed at the mess on one cheek. 

He finally opened his eyes, looking up at Ashe, giddy. “That--”

Ashe didn’t let him finish. He swept down, kissing Cyril despite the filth, not caring as their tongues tangled.

They could not hold it long, both breathless and exhausted. When they separated, Cyril was laughing, an infectious sound that spread to Ashe as well as he collapsed beside Cyril on the bed. Cyril spent a moment hastily wiping off his face. Then Ashe put his arm around Cyril’s waist, nuzzling against his shoulder. Ashe felt Cyril’s breaths calming, felt his body cooling under his arm. 

“Is Felix going to murder me?” Cyril said.

“No,” Ashe said.

“Probably shoulda asked that first.”

Ashe just laughed. “Probably. But no, I think he’ll be happy. Both of them will.”

“Both? Wait, you mean Annette?”

“Mhm.”

Cyril’s fingers traced lazy circles up and down Ashe’s back. “Huh,” he mused. “How ‘bout that. World gets stranger every day.”

“Is it really so strange?” Ashe said.

“Hm, I guess not, now that I actually think about it.” He kissed the top of Ashe’s head. “I’m happy for you, Ashe. You found your people.”

“So did you.”

Ashe could hear Cyril’s smile in his voice. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ashe can have a little healing sex, as a treat.
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!
> 
> Did you know there’s an actual Ashelix Week coming up??? Oct 17-24, 2020, will be Ashelix Week. Come create some good, good Ashelix.


	2. The First Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to fight a god.

Felix’s heart pounded in his ears.

Only his heart.

There was no echoing call, no beat to accompany it, no war drums rumbling deep within him. At first, he’d hardly noticed the lack of his crest. But now, here, when it should have been singing in his blood, the absence rang in his ears, a fathomless, dark chasm where there should have been blinding light.

When he glanced at his silent companions, crowded in around him on the stairs leading aboveground, Felix saw he wasn’t alone. Gone was Ingrid’s surety, Sylvain’s cockiness, even Hilda’s boredom. They were going in naked now, stripped down to mere mortal flesh.

Felix looked to Ashe at his side. Ashe, who’d never had a crest in the first place, who’d waded in fearlessly time and time again despite that. Felix had never considered it before: not when they were students and certainly not during the war with Edelgard. That reckless rush at Enbarr’s ballistae, an attack that had ultimately allowed Dimitri’s army to prevail, seemed even more ridiculous now that Felix understood – truly understood.

Ashe caught him staring and smiled. He looked like he was about to say something, but then Claude appeared, re-entering the underground from the door above. 

“Cyril, Ashe, Annette, Lorenz, Marianne – you ready?” Claude said. He received nods in response. “All right, let’s get up there. Front liners, follow Hilda’s lead. You all know what to do.”

Felix wanted to shout as Ashe started to leave with the others. It was too dangerous. It was madness. They couldn’t win, not like this. Not crestless. 

He bit it all back. Nothing had changed for Ashe. He’d done this without crests for his entire life; Felix would simply need to do the same.

Hilda stepped solemnly toward the doors that would lead them aboveground. Her silence, her grimness set Felix on edge. He’d never known her well, but everyone seemed to feel the disparity between this solemn commander and the typical Hilda. 

She said nothing to them, just pushed that door open and marched out with her massive axe over her shoulder. 

The rest followed: Ingrid in her armor, Sylvain with a much less bright Lance of Ruin, and, of course, Felix. He was grateful it’d been his shield that was crest-enhanced and not his swords. They were still just as they’d always been, solid and reliable. 

The air was cool when Felix emerged from the underground. Somehow, in the midst of war, of the world shattering, fall had arrived in Fodlan. It was incongruously beautiful: the trees in full burning red and orange, the clear sky, the golden leaves carpeting the broken stone of the monastery. 

And there, like a smudge of dirt on this lovely canvas, was the beast. 

The dragon slept, its breaths storms that shook the leaves off the trees every time it exhaled. It lay curled up on crumbled stone, what had once been the market. Now, the area was flattened, crushed under a body massive enough to fill the entire square where merchants had once sold vulneraries and weapons to Officers Academy students. 

Gray-blue scales shimmered on the dragon’s hide, interrupted by hard spikes and folded up wings. Even its tail was spiked, though the talons on its feet looked far more menacing. Massive teeth protruded from its maw, razor sharp.

They’d known it would be sleeping now. It always slept now. For all its confounding magic and size, it was a remarkably predictable beast. 

The four attackers fanned out. Felix was near the center, being both the quietest and the fastest. Ingrid and Sylvain flanked him on one side, Hilda on the other. They all crept forward, taking tentative steps toward the dragon. 

The beast’s breaths battered Felix as he drew near. The snores it exhaled were hot, almost burning. Felix stayed to one side, both to avoid the heat and to avoid being smelled. None of them were sure just how sensitive the creature was, but it couldn’t cause them anything but trouble if they were detected too soon. 

Felix set a hand on one hilt. He looked to Hilda, who gave him a solemn nod. Felix slid the sword free of its sheath as silently as he could, aimed it at the god made flesh snoring before him. Paused.

Hesitated.

Felix was afraid.

#

“How do you do it?” Felix said in the dark.

He lay on his side facing Ashe. On Ashe’s other side, Annette perked up, her arm still draped over Ashe’s waist but her head now lifted to hear his response.

Ashe just smiled. “Never had a choice,” he said.

“You did,” Felix said. “You didn’t need to go to the Officers Academy. Yet you enrolled. You wanted to be a knight. Even crestless. How did you do it? How did you stand there every time and face your enemies without it?”

“Hm,” Ashe mused, his voice soft in the dark. “Well, I guess I never thought of it as lacking something.”

“Weren’t you scared?” Annette said.

“Yes,” Ashe said, “but I did it anyway. You can’t be brave if you aren’t afraid, can you?”

#

Felix was afraid.

He attacked anyway.

The dragon roused before he could reach it, but it didn’t matter. Felix was far too fast for it to stop. He darted toward the beast, sword grating along its neck. Scales the size of plates sheered off, but felix suspected he’d done little damage to the creature itself.

He didn’t get to find out. The dragon rose, stone trembling as it stood. Felix hadn’t made it far when the dragon roared, shaking the sky itself, making Felix’s whole body seem to vibrate with thunderous waves of sound.

The dragon looked at him. Felix hardly reached what he’d consider the knee of one leg, one leg it was now raising with murderous intent.

Felix crouched to flee, but the beast jerked back instead of stomping that foot down. It issued a booming wail of rage.

Felix took his chance, dashing away. Sylvain and Ingrid jabbed at the beast, their spears wedging between shimmering scales. Even though it was no better than any other spear now, Sylvain still wielded the Lance of Ruin as though it sparked with crest magic. He slashed at the dragon, wide sweeps that sheared off scales, leaving soft flesh exposed beneath. 

But their efforts were not what made the beast howl.

Hilda yanked her axe out of the meat of the dragon’s tail, only to bring the weapon down once again. She hacked, severing off a chunk at the tip of the tail before finally retreating.

The dragon shrieked, piercing, frantic. Felix had to cover his ears as he stumbled away from the rampaging creature. It slapped its tail wildly, blood spraying from the open wound. 

Felix and the others ran. In its pain, the crest dragon was thrashing incoherently, lashing out in every direction. Its tail crashed into the side of a building, demolishing the structure to dust. Then it whipped its tail back, catching Hilda. She flew into a wall, hitting it hard and sliding to the ground. 

Felix watched until he saw her move, shaky and clearly in pain but at least still alive. He looked to Sylvain and Ingrid, who nodded. 

They moved at a silent signal, rushing back at the beast, weapons ready. Sylvain was shouting, drawing the creature’s attention away from Hilda as she recovered. 

It worked. 

The dragon snapped its head toward the trio, baring fangs the size of spears. That hideous maw could snatch up any of them in an instant, could snuff out an entire life before anyone even realized what was happening.

The fear returned, a cold trickle seeping into Felix’s bones, freezing his muscles when he attempted to approach his enemy. 

Instead, he froze, sword up but useless. The dragon snarled. Its massive head lowered – right at Felix. 

For a moment, the world stopped. The dragon gazed directly at Felix. He could smell the sulfur in its breath, heat washing over him as the thing breathed and huffed and snuffled. Why it did not simply eat him, Felix could not say, but it seemed as stunned into inaction as Felix himself.

He felt his sword lowering, felt his body going slack, as though the creature had woven some spell over him. This wasn’t magic, though. It was … acknowledgment.

He gazed into enormous, monstrous eyes. Beside the thin slits of the pupils, the dragon’s eyes glowed blue, glowed in a way Felix instantly recognized. He saw the pulse behind those eyes, saw the crest shaped like a spiked shield etched into the creature’s very being.

This was the Shield Dragon.

 _His_ dragon.

Felix discerned his former crest in the dragon evaluating him. He longed for the power within the beast. The beat in its eyes pulsed in time with Felix’s heart. Drums beat in his ears, a pounding song he knew so well. 

For all the heartache and harm it had caused, he ached for that power then, ached to regain the strength he knew lurked in that massive body. It wasn’t the dragon’s size they truly needed to fear. It was that crest, the crest of Fraldarius, Felix’s crest. He knew all too well how powerful it was, how it longed to explode out, how it yearned to consume, to destroy. They were toys before it, fragile little pieces on a game board too massive for any of them to comprehend.

They could not win. 

Felix stumbled back a step. The dragon did not follow him. It did not move at all. It merely kept watching. 

Felix knew he was trembling. He gripped his sword more tightly to avoid dropping it, though he suspected the weapon was now worthless in his grasp. 

For all his training, all his bluster about practicing until he perfected sword forms and footwork, Felix felt like a rank novice with his crest looking him right in the eyes. What could he do? How could mere swordsmanship defeat a power like that, a power that came from the goddess herself?

It couldn’t. Felix knew it deep in the pit of his stomach. Knew it with a certainty that could not be shaken. 

“Felix,” someone called. Ingrid? Sylvain? He couldn’t even tell anymore. 

“Felix,” they shouted. “Run, Felix. Get away from it.” 

He couldn’t. Not even if he wanted to. He couldn’t run if they lit him on fire. Even as he stuttered backward on trembling legs, he never looked away from the dragon, hardly blinked as he gazed into those pulsing blue eyes. 

So much power had never belonged with humans. How foolish they’d been, presuming to wield a magic so terrifying and overwhelming. They would pay for that hubris now. 

“ _Felix._ ”

The dragon opened its mouth. Felix’s vision was consumed by rows of razor-sharp teeth dripping with saliva. He did not raise his sword as that mouth neared. The dragon set out with an odd gentleness, even as it meant to consume him. Felix could do little but brace for what was coming. 

It never arrived. 

The dragon jerked away, the air suddenly cool as it raised its head and its hot breath dissipated. It jerked around, looking toward something high above it. 

Felix followed its gaze, saw Cyril and Ashe on a wyvern, both firing down at the dragon. 

Then something struck from the other side. Magic, launched from what remained of the ramparts, a gout of wind and fire springing from Annette and Lorenz’s hands. 

There was more. Claude shot from on top of a roof. Marianne leeched the life out of the beast and into Hilda from atop the wall Hilda had struck. On every side, any projectile the ragtag group could muster shot at the dragon, assailing it from all directions. 

The crest dragon was snapping at the walls, at the sky, at anything. Its teeth clacked as it met empty air again and again. Cyril’s wyvern was far too high for it to reach without flying. Annette and Lorenz had a little alcove to duck into. All the attackers had found nooks and cracks to slip into any time the beast lashed out at them.

With those pulsing eyes distracted, Felix gasped. He felt like he’d been released from some kind of nightmare, startling awake into a world where his friends and allies were fighting for their lives while he stood mute and useless among them.

He would not stay useless for long. 

He raised his sword in steady hands. The beast’s attempts to reach the others brought it up to standing. Sometimes it even wobbled up onto its hind legs to try to achieve a greater height. 

That meant it wasn’t looking at the ground, not at all. 

Sylvain, Ingrid and Hilda were faster to react than Felix. Already, they were rushing in, jabbing at any unprotected flesh they could find. 

It wasn’t enough. Felix could see that before they even struck. They were still hitting armor, still scraping off scales. 

There was one place that was completely exposed. One place they could be effective.

Felix sprinted at the dragon. Distantly, he heard someone call for him, but he did not heed the voice. He rushed in, not merely _to_ the creature but _under_ it. He ran right beneath its belly, all the way to the soft, exposed, vulnerable places hidden there, places with no scales, places with no armor. 

Felix jabbed straight upward. The dragon roared in pain, trying to jerk away. Felix had to be fast. He dragged his sword along the beast’s belly, pulled through skin and muscle and fat, whatever this thing was made of. His sword felt tremendously heavy as he drew it along, as the dragon tried to rear away. Its attempts to stand on its hind legs only gave Felix more to cut. He sliced all the way down its underbelly, as far as he could go, blood pouring out in gushes. 

The others, apparently, hadn’t let up. When Felix’s sword finally came free, running out of soft skin to damage, the dragon stumbled sideways, struck by something. Felix wasn’t sure what; he only heard the roar of magic and saw a burst of color somewhere far, far above. 

Then the dragon was shaking, tipping. Felix had to dodge around scrabbling legs to get free of the beast. 

He spun in time to see blood dripping down the dragon’s face. One of its glowing eyes was gone. There was a patch on its side that looked like it had been burned clean through to the bone. And its belly, its horrible, gaping belly – there was little left but ragged tatters of skin, soaked with the blood pouring out.

The dragon let out a final cry, weaker, quieter, not even enough to shake the pebbles of the ruined monastery. 

Then it collapsed on its side and lay utterly still.

No one moved. No one cheered. They waited, watching the dragon, searching for even the barest hint of a breath. Several long moments passed before Sylvain finally said, “It’s really dead.” 

Felix’s sword fell from limp fingers. He followed, collapsing to his knees, planting his hands on the ground to keep from falling face first to the stone. 

Sylvain and Ingrid were at his side in an instant. 

“Are you hurt?” Ingrid said.

Felix just shook his head. He was trembling. His arms, his legs, his breaths. Nothing was steady.

He sat back and shivered in the cool fall breeze. Felix realized he was soaked, drenched utterly in dragon’s blood. It was turning sticky on him, even as it slid down his arms and legs, dripped out of his clothing, formed a pool around him. 

Sylvain crouched before him, grabbing him by the sides of his face despite the filth.

“Felix, are you injured?”

“No,” he said. 

Sylvain tried to wipe the blood off Felix’s face, but there was simply too much of the stuff. Felix nudged him away.

“I’m unhurt,” Felix said. “None of it is mine.” 

Others approached. Felix looked up to see Marianne walking with Hilda’s arm over her shoulders. Annette was running at him, Lorenz far behind. Claude strolled in, clearly unconcerned. 

A gust brushed across Felix as Cyril’s wyvern beat its wings to slow its descent. The creature barely touched the ground before Ashe leapt off its back and ran at Felix.

Ashe and Annette reached Felix at nearly the same instant. Felix stood, putting up a hand to stall their questions. “None of it is mine.”

“Gods, Felix, you look...” Annette said.

“We saw you go under that thing,” Ashe said, “but we had no idea what happened next.” His eyes had a wild look in them that stabbed at Felix. 

“I’m not hurt,” Felix said. The blood wasn’t dripping off him anymore, but there was still plenty of it gathered around his feet. 

Claude finally reached the group, unhurried. 

“Nice work,” he said. “All of you. Is anyone hurt? Hilda? Felix?”

They both shook their heads in response.

“She’ll be OK,” Marianne said. “I healed most of it already. Just bruises and soreness.” 

“Shit,” Hilda hissed. “We actually did it.”

A beat of silence rippled through the group before Claude relieved them.

“Yeah,” Claude said. “We did. But the work isn’t over. That thing--” he waved at the fallen dragon “--is probably going to be half our food supply for a good long while. We need people who can deal with the meat. We need more who can cart away anything that’s not usable before it starts to rot. Then there’s the matter of the pipes...” 

His voice dulled to a drone as he went on. Felix swayed on his feet. He felt exhausted, hollow. He didn’t even know why. The battle hadn’t been long, certainly not compared to many other battles he’d faced in his life. Yet there was something about those eyes, those pulsing crest eyes. There was something about seeing them up close, recognizing the dragon for what it was, knowing its magic was finally, truly snuffed out. The crest of Fraldarius was dead and it would never return to this world. 

Annette caught him by the shoulder. “Hey, you need to clean this off,” she said. 

Felix just nodded. She looped her arm through his. Ashe took his other side. 

“We’ll go check out the baths,” Ashe said. “We can take care of two things at once if we clean him off while we check out the pipes.”

Claude just nodded. 

Felix didn’t dare glance in Sylvain’s direction as Annette and Ashe led him away.

#

Felix ducked his head into lukewarm water. When he re-emerged, a red cloud spread around him. 

Ashe combed through Felix’s hair with his fingers, scrubbing it with soap. Not ideal, but it was so caked in gunk that they had to use whatever they had. 

“It’s gonna take a while to get this all out,” Ashe said. 

“Mmm.” Despite the lukewarm water, Felix didn’t feel particularly troubled about having to linger in the baths. Annette had been able to use magic to get the water up to a tolerable temperature. The moment he’d sunk into it, Felix had felt every muscle go slack. He thought he might be able to stay there with Ashe’s hands in his hair for the rest of his life. 

“How were the pipes?” Ashe said. 

Annette waded into the water and joined them. “Pretty bad,” she said. “We might want to only use these baths from now on. Though I suppose that doesn’t matter. People don’t really need to stay in the underground anymore. I mean, Dimitri’s not attacking.”

“There are more dragons,” Felix said. 

His companions went quiet.

“That’s true,” Ashe said. “Underground might be safer.” 

“Some things will have to be done aboveground,” Annette said.

“How?” Ashe said. “We don’t know how many more of those things are out there. We don’t even know where they are.” 

“Twenty-two.”

Ashe and Annette both looked to Felix.

“There are 22,” he said. “One for each crest.”

Ashe cursed softly. Annette murmured to herself.

“You’re right,” she said. “There are probably 22 of those things. Well, 21, now. But gods, we barely got through one. How in the world are we going to kill 21 more?”

“We aren’t,” Felix said. 

“We have to,” Ashe said. “We can’t just hide underground forever.”

Felix shook his head. “We need a different way. Can’t fight them all like this.”

“But what?” Ashe said.

Felix shrugged. Even the attempt to consider killing 21 more crest-bearing dragons made him feel exhausted. They’d been lucky on this one. The crest of Fraldarius, a creature of order and habit, a shield, was predictable. They’d known when it would sleep and therefore when they could attack. But there were others. How would the Fissure Dragon behave? How strong was the magic of the Wind Dragon? How would they ever get close to the Star Dragon? 

It sounded impossible. At least Felix had understood this one. He hadn’t known that going into the battle, but he’d known it when he’d seen those glowing eyes. It was _his_ damn dragon, insofar as it could be, anyway. What would he do with the ones he couldn’t understand?

“Hey,” Ashe said at his ear. His hands had gone still. “You’re trembling. Are you OK?” 

Something within Felix cracked, a fissure that threatened to shatter his very core. He looked around, even though he knew it was only Ashe and Annette with him. Then he spoke softly, down at the cloudy water. 

“I’m scared.”

Ashe moved his hands from Felix’s hair to around his shoulders, hugging Felix against his bare chest. It made Felix feel a little more stable, a little less fragile. 

“I am too,” Ashe said. 

“Me too,” Annette said. She moved in close, took Felix’s face in her hands to rub her thumbs against his cheeks.

Ashe pulled away first. “We’re gonna figure it out.” 

“Are you sure?” It was Annette sounding uncertain this time. 

“Yes,” Ashe said. 

“But how?”

“I don’t know,” Ashe said, “but we’re here with some of the smartest and bravest people in the world, right? If anyone has a chance of dealing with this, it’s folks like Claude and Hilda and all the others.”

“Maybe there’s a way to...” Annette waved a hand. “To attack the source rather than each individual.”

“What is the source, though?” Ashe said.

Annette shrugged. “I have no idea.” 

Felix didn’t bother responding. What use was there in pointing out that they were up against the gods themselves? What sense in noting their fragile mortality as they all sat huddled and naked in a pool cloudy with dragon’s blood? 

Ashe went back to cleaning Felix’s hair. “For now, we need to wash and eat and rest. We can’t take on 21 dragons all at once, but we can take care of ourselves before the next fight.”

The next fight. And the next. And the next. At Ashe’s words, Felix couldn’t help seeing their future lined up like a series of mountains, each more impossibly tall than the next. 

And at the top of each, a god in dragon form, their eyes pulsing with the light of crests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to my friend Ron. When outlining this, I had a panicked moment of "OK, but how ARE they gonna kill a dragon god though?" and he provided a great idea. 
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!
> 
> Did you know there’s an actual Ashelix Week coming up??? Oct 17-24, 2020, will be Ashelix Week. Come create some good, good Ashelix.


	3. Doors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashe visits his old dorm room, searching for one last memory before it's time to leave again. His party of one rapidly gains followers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has smut! You're welcome? It wasn't going to originally, but Ashe and Felix said "fuck your outline."

It was a strange thing to visit his old dorm room. 

It wasn’t like during the war. When Ashe had returned after five years away, seeing his old room had been nostalgic, despite the circumstances.

Ashe ran his fingers through the dust, the chips of broken stone scattered on his former desk. He’d been so nervous about whether Felix would return, what it would be like to see him again. Ashe laughed to himself. Could that really have only been a couple years ago? The version of Ashe who’d snuck around the monastery, stealing away to closets to be with Felix in fleeting bursts of passion, seemed so young and naive compared to who he was now. 

Maybe it was simply that so much had changed in the intervening years. 

Not just Felix. Not just their relationship, either, though that couldn’t be more different than the way it had started. 

No, the whole world was different now, as broken as the splintered wood that had once been his desk chair. Strange that that had broken and not the desk itself, but Ashe had given up seeking order and sense.

He searched. It wasn’t good to linger, even with the Shield Dragon dead. There were still others out there. He and the others saw them in the skies sometimes when Claude sent people above ground to cut more meat off that dragon, to salvage what was usable and haul off what wasn’t.

They’d been eating dragon meat for days. They’d continue eating it for moons, most likely. So much of it was frozen in underground vaults that it could probably feed entire cities. The meat wasn’t bad – a bit tough, a bit gamy, yet surprisingly ordinary for the flesh of gods – but eating it day after day was becoming tiresome. No matter how many ways Ashe and the other cooks tried to think of to prepare it, it basically always boiled down to the same thing.

To say nothing of the smell.

Even from the ruin of his old dorm room, Ashe could practically taste the decay. 

All the more reason to get this done quickly. 

He dug through the room, tore moldy sheets off the bed, opened every drawer in the desk. If he found a book, he leafed through it. If there was an old shirt around, he flipped it inside out. 

Finally, he found a scrap. Not the whole thing, not even close, but one tiny shred that had somehow survived all this time. 

Ashe took it, tucking it into a pocket on the inside of his tunic, and turned to rush back underground.

He stopped.

Felix leaned against the frame of the doorway (the door itself was long gone), arms folded over his chest. He regarded Ashe with a faint smirk. 

“What are you doing here?” Ashe said.

“I was going to ask you the same.”

“Just reminiscing.” 

Felix pushed away from the doorframe, striding up to Ashe. “Reminiscing, huh?” 

He tucked Ashe’s hair behind his ear, just as Ashe had started doing a few years ago. It had been a while since he’d bothered trimming it or making sure it was neat, though. There’d just been so much else to worry about. From the way Felix was looking at him now, Ashe suspected he didn’t mind the lack of tidiness.

“I’ve got some memories of this place too,” Felix said.

Ashe slipped his hands around Felix’s waist, pulling him closer so their hips met. “Oh yeah?”

Felix quirked an eyebrow. He put his arms around Ashe’s shoulders, plucking at his hair. “Mm hm. I believe there’s a closet somewhere around here...”

“Don’t you dare,” Ashe said with mock anger.

He couldn’t help smiling. Felix smirked right back. Ashe leaned in, kissing that mischievous little grin, that grin only he got to see. 

“You’re going to fuck me properly right here,” Ashe said.

“Is that so?”

“It is.” 

“You’ve gotten bossy, Ubert.”

Ashe kissed him again, mouth wandering from Felix’s lips to his ear. “Maybe you’ve just gotten soft.” 

Felix laughed against him. Then his hand tightened in Ashe’s hair. Felix smashed their lips together as though to refute of any notion of “softness.” From where their hips met, Ashe felt another counter-argument. 

Ashe pulled Felix tighter against him. They stumbled backward, still trying to keep their mouths together. Eventually, the back of Ashe’s knees hit the bed. The sad old furniture protested when Ashe and Felix dropped onto it. For a moment, Ashe was afraid the frame itself would snap, crumbling to dust beneath them, but it held even as Felix climbed into Ashe’s lap. 

Ashe was sitting up, his back supported by the stone of the wall. Felix wriggled his hand into Ashe’s trousers, starting to stroke him. 

“There’s no door,” Ashe said, nodding toward the exposed doorway Felix had entered through.

“Don’t care,” Felix said. His mouth was busy sucking at Ashe’s neck, his hand working more vigorously, as though in defiance of that glaring entryway. 

Goddess, things really had changed in these past two years or so. If Ashe could have told the version of himself stifling his moans in that miserable closet that in a few years’ time he’d have Felix in his lap in a room with no door, he thought that past Ashe might laugh right in his face. It sounded impossible, even as it unfolded right before him. 

Felix released Ashe, but only for long enough to loosen the laces of his own pants. Then he scooted forward, spreading his legs wider around Ashe to get their hips as close as possible. Felix took them both in hand, pressing their cocks together. His breath puffed hot against Ashe’s face as he started to stroke them both in his hand. 

Ashe groaned and shifted his hips to give Felix a better grip. He reached for Felix’s ass, gripping to tug Felix closer. Felix gave a low rumble of a moan in return, one Ashe felt right in his chest due to their proximity. 

Better positioned, Felix redoubled his efforts, running his hand up and down, squeezing them together, thumbing over their tips. 

Ashe clung to his ass. It was so firm in his hands, especially as Felix braced with his legs. Ashe slipped one hand down Felix’s pants, yearning to feel that firm ass bare beneath him. His other hand rested on the small of Felix’s back to support him. 

Ashe swayed his hips to match Felix’s hand. It was a small motion, the most he could manage given how Felix was sitting on him, but Felix mirrored him. They rolled in tandem, even as Felix smeared beads of pre-come down their cocks. 

“It’s gonna … gonna make a mess,” Ashe rasped. He was getting far too close too quickly and they both still had all of their clothes on. They’d be slinking back to the underground filthy if they didn’t do something about it soon.

But Felix just murmured, a sound almost more animal than human. “Don’t care.”

Fuck, it was hot. Seeing Felix, of all people, teetering out of control, barely restrained, growling like the heat pouring off him was completely beyond his ability to restrain... It was almost enough to have Ashe coming right then and there, heedless of the mess they’d both have to wear. 

Whatever shred of him could still think clearly warned that as hot as that sounded now, it would soon be anything but. 

Ashe reluctantly stopped Felix, as much as his hand was lighting Ashe’s whole body on fire with its sure, precise strokes. Felix whimpered like a kicked dog, but Ashe shoved Felix down onto the bed. 

Ashe nearly tore his own pants off. Felix scrambled to do the same.

“If we do it this way...” Ashe said. 

He climbed over Felix so his cock was at head level. None of that frantic heat had time to dissipate as Ashe got Felix into his mouth, gliding down his shaft. Even as Ashe started to bob, Felix did the same to Ashe, taking him into his mouth with a moan. 

Ashe groaned around Felix’s cock in his mouth, licking along the length, teasing at the head. Felix, meanwhile, reached for Ashe’s hip, encouraging him to sink a little deeper into Felix’s mouth. The way Felix was taking him in nearly to the back of his throat made Ashe realize he must have arrived at this room already pent up, already planning to do exactly this. 

Ashe moaned at the thought. The knowledge that Felix had likely been prowling around the monastery looking for him, wanting him, made his whole body flush with warmth. He tightened his lips around Felix, flicking his tongue out at the head of his dick, playing along it until he felt Felix shudder. 

Yes, this was certainly different from the old days. Different and good.

Felix licked in a way that made Ashe gasp. Ashe opened his mouth so wide he nearly let Felix’s cock slip out. He was still quivering when he attempted to recover, lowering back down that throbbing shaft. 

Ashe knew he was close, knew they were both close, but he tried to hang on a little longer. Knowing they were doing this right before that open doorway sent a bolt of excitement and danger quivering through Ashe. It was such a contrast to the days when Felix was trying to hide everything, to pretend it wasn’t even happening. Now, he was whining under Ashe, his voice shivering up through Ashe’s cock and into his belly.

Ashe couldn’t withstand it much longer. He hummed with pleasure and Felix moaned in return, seeming to understand without further explanation. Neither of them removed their mouths though; neither stopped licking and squeezing, teasing the other to completion. 

They didn’t make a mess.

Well, not on their clothes, at least.

What hit the back of Ashe’s throat certainly felt like it painted his mouth in messy splatters. He held firm, groaning, encouraging every drop out of Felix before he swallowed it all down. 

He loved it. Loved feeling Felix in his mouth, loved that open doorway, loved Felix’s fingers digging into his skin as he finally let go. It pushed Ashe right over the edge after him. Felix only held on more firmly as Ashe spilled into his mouth. 

For a moment, Ashe stayed propped up over Felix, trying to catch his breath, to hold on through the shivers tickling up and down his spine.

Then he flopped off of Felix, lying limp beside him on the old, creaking bed. Felix sat up, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he turned around so he could lay on his side facing Ashe. Felix’s fingers combed through Ashe’s hair, wandering along the exposed skin of his neck. His hand sent trickles of heat through Ashe, warm reverberations of his recent ecstasy. 

Ashe finally voiced the thought that had been stuck in his throat ever since he entered this decrepit and disused room. “A lot has changed.”

Felix nodded, fingers still wandering. 

“I mean in a good way,” Ashe said. 

Felix met his gaze at that. “Some things.” 

Ashe could hear the tightness in his voice. He knew Felix was thinking of all that had changed for the worse: the war, the death, the gods tearing the world apart who were more than a little likely to kill them all in the end. 

Did Felix place crests in the “good” category or the “bad?” 

Certainly, Felix had hated the system built around the crests, the type of obsession with heredity that had made him so paranoid and secretive back when he and Ashe had first gotten together. 

Yet Ashe couldn’t help remembering how afraid Felix had been during the recent battle with the Shield Dragon. Felix was never afraid to fight. Never. Did losing his crest bother him now that he faced the prospect of going on without it? 

“I didn’t come here just for … that,” Felix said.

Ashe tensed. Perhaps this was the moment he found out that Felix did long for that crest still, that the fear was too much. 

“I don’t think we can stay here.”

Ashe blinked. “What? But they’re out there. Even being above ground like this is dangerous.”

“I know,” Felix said, “but we can’t linger here.”

“We have to,” Ashe said. “Claude--”

“I’m not concerned with Claude. Ashe, your siblings...”

An icy chill flushed through Ashe. 

“They’re still in Gautier,” Felix said. “At least, they’re probably still in Gautier. I know you don’t intend to just leave them there.”

Ashe swallowed. “I don’t, but...” 

“Isn’t that why you came up here today?” Felix pushed. “When I heard you’d gone above ground, I knew you were getting restless. It’s almost time, isn’t it?”

Ashe hesitated. He ran a hand over his chest, feeling the little scrap of paper he’d tucked inside his tunic. Why had he come here if not to get this last bit of secret treasure before he had to leave, before it was too late? 

“I can’t force you and Annette to go out there,” Ashe said.

“Stop,” Felix said. “You have no chance of getting us to leave you. Don’t waste our time.” 

Despite himself, a smile tugged at Ashe’s mouth. Part of him had considered sneaking away, knowing that’d be the only way not to put Felix and Annette in danger. He knew as well as them that they wouldn’t let him go without them. 

He shuffled close enough to kiss Felix. “I know.” 

“Why were you up here?” Felix said. “I mean, besides being restless.”

“I wanted to get something before I left.”

“What?”

“Nothing important.” He hurried on before Felix could press. “We need to plan, if we’re really going to do this. Do you think Claude will give us horses?”

“He has enough, what with the amount of people who fled here after the battle. It might be a relief to Claude to see some of them taken off his hands.”

“We’ll also need supplies. A lot of them.”

“Dragon meat,” Felix said, though he grimaced.

“Probably. Claude won’t miss it. He has more than enough, goddess knows.” 

“That’s only the practical stuff though,” Felix said. “The bigger question is...”

“How do we fix it?” 

Felix nodded. 

Ashe shook his head, as much as he could while lying on his side anyhow. “I don’t know. There are stories, old stories. I mean, I read that kind of nonsense a lot when I was a student, but none of it was real. Just legends, myths, fairytales. I doubt it’s useful.”

“Anything is more than what we have right now, but we can worry about it later. The first job is to get your siblings and make sure they’re safe. And we’ll do it, Ashe, I swear.”

Something trembled within Ashe, something he’d been burying for a long, long time, never daring to think about. Some piece of him had put his siblings off to the side, labeled them “safe” and beyond reach as long as they were in Gautier. Last he’d heard, the margrave was still allowing them to stay with him, likely thanks to Sylvain. 

But neither margraves nor dukes nor kings were a guarantee of safety against dragons. 

Ashe’s lip quivered. He tried to look away as the first tear fell, but Felix caught it on his finger, wiping it gently off his cheek. Felix kissed the next one, pulling Ashe close.

“We’ll get to them,” Felix said. 

Ashe clung to Felix, pressed against the warmth of his chest, Felix’s arms tight around him. He let the fear come, let the helplessness and worry pour out of him and into the fabric of Felix’s shirt. 

And if anyone passed by that open doorway and saw them, Ashe neither knew nor cared.

#

The preparations took an interminable few days. Claude was more than happy to give them horses. He even offered them food that wasn’t just cured and salted dragon meat.

By the time they were truly ready to leave, they had more than enough food and water to get three people to Gautier. It would still be a hard ride, and a dangerous one, but they’d never expected otherwise. 

Felix strapped his swords to a saddle. Annette had found an axe (Hilda’s recommendation) that she now secured to her own horse. 

Ashe had a bow, of course, one far finer than he would have requested, but Claude had insisted. Privately, he feared it was a waste of a very fine bow. What possible use was a bow against a dragon? Even with the help of Annette and Felix, three people seemed remarkably unlikely to take down a god on their own. No, if they got to Gautier it wouldn’t be because of weapons; it would be pure, stupid luck.

That tightened a knot in Ashe’s belly, one of several clenching in his gut as he prepared to ride out into the broken world beyond the monastery. 

Even so, he knew he had no choice. Rowan and Fina were out there. He’d left them for far, far too long, always just hoping they were miraculously safe. He couldn’t rely on miracles anymore. Not in a world whose gods were out to destroy it.

“Hey.”

Ashe turned at the sound of Cyril’s voice. He stood framed by the light outside the stable, warm and bright.

“Came to see ya off,” Cyril said as he approached.

Ashe smiled, some of those knots loosening. He didn’t bother speaking, just wrapped Cyril in a tight embrace. Cyril hugged him back just as hard, even kissing him on the cheek. 

“I have to admit, I wish we’d had a little more time together,” Cyril said, still holding Ashe against him.

A twinge tightened around Ashe’s heart. “I do, too.” 

“Maybe someday, huh?” Cyril said. 

It seemed an absurdly optimistic statement, especially considering the suicidal mission Ashe was about to embark on. Even so, he broke the embrace to lean back and look Cyril in the eyes as he said, “Maybe.” 

Cyril looked like he might leave it there, but Ashe tugged him close one final time, whispering at his ear, “Thank you.”

Cyril laughed against him. “For what?”

“I can’t really explain, but … it mattered to me. It mattered a lot.” 

Cyril pulled away to look at Ashe. As he did, his smile turned a little wistful, a little sad. He leaned forward, his kiss soft and yearning and nostalgic. 

“It mattered to me too,” Cyril said. “Just so you know.” 

Ashe swallowed around the lump forming in his throat, only able to nod.

“Safe travels, Ashe.” That was all Cyril said before he slipped out of Ashe’s grasp, walking away, disappearing beyond the doors the stable.

Ashe’s heart ached as he watched Cyril leave. He didn’t know if he’d ever see him again, how long either of them would manage to live in a world like this. Ashe realized this was just the first of many such partings, however. Everyone in the underground, every life he encountered was now so tenuous and fragile, even compared to when they’d all merely been at war. 

“I think that’s it,” Claude said.

That simple statement fell like a stone into Ashe’s stomach. That was it. Time to go. Time to leave everyone behind and simply hope they didn’t die. 

Annette gripped Ashe’s shoulder. “You ready?” 

Ashe nodded. Her hand was firm, lending him strength and solidity. 

At least he had Annette and Felix, always Annette and Felix, who’d never left his side in all of this. He just hoped he wasn’t going to get them killed for the sake of his siblings. Felix had been right – he had meant to keep them out of this somehow. But Ashe had known how futile that hope was even as he’d worked toward it.

“The others send their regards,” Claude said, facing them in the stable. 

He was the only one, besides Cyril, who’d come to see them off, but Ashe hadn’t really expected anything else. When it came to the rest of the former Golden Deer, and Linhardt, they’d been closer to comrades than actual friends. Opposite sides of a war and all that. 

“Anything else you need?” Claude said.

“No,” Ashe said, “you’ve been more than generous.”

“Well, you three did your part around here. Fought with us, did your share of the work, if not more. Kept this place standing. That deserves acknowledging.” 

Ashe smiled. Claude was going to be a fine leader, if ever there was a world left for him to lead. 

Claude made the rounds between the three of them, patting Felix on the shoulder, hugging Annette and, lastly, standing before Ashe. 

He held out a hand. “Cyril speaks highly of you. That carries a lot of weight with me. I’m sorry we didn’t know each other better.”

Ashe bypassed his hand, going in for a hug. He knew Claude had offered that hand because of something Cyril had told him, but it felt not just safe, but good to hug Claude goodbye in earnest. Claude cautiously returned the gesture before they stepped apart.

“Keep each other safe,” Claude said. “Be smart. I better not hear about something going wrong.”

“We’ll be--”

Felix was probably about to say “fine,” but just then the doors of the stable re-opened. Everyone turned toward the sound. 

Sylvain and Ingrid stood in the entrance, turned to stark silhouettes by the light beyond the doorway. 

Sylvain was breathless, like he’d run to the stable. He didn’t stop moving, charging inside and right up to the trio.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Sylvain said.

Claude raised an eyebrow; Felix’s face darkened. 

“What are you doing?” Ashe said, eager to interject before Felix did. 

Sylvain whirled toward him. “You’re leaving? The three of you?” 

“Yes,” Felix said, biting off the word into something as sharp as his swords.

“You can’t.”

“We--” Felix started.

“We need to,” Ashe said. He wasn’t going to let this devolve into another fight between them. His own resolve was tenuous enough without Felix and Sylvain bickering again. 

They’d given each other a lot of space in the underground. Or, at least, Felix had given Sylvain a lot of space, eager to stay away from him as much as he could in the tight quarters. It was clear now, however, that Sylvain had merely been biding his time, waiting for an opportunity. 

“We’re coming with you,” Sylvain said.

“Like hell you’re--” Felix started.

“You can’t,” Ashe said. 

Sylvain glanced between them as though trying to decide whom he might have better luck with. He landed on Ashe.

“Please,” he said. “Ingrid and I can ride. We’re better riders than any of you, in fact. And we can fight. You can’t really expect to fend off dragons on your own. And you’re going to Gautier, aren’t you?”

“Where’d you hear that?” Felix said.

“Come on,” Sylvain said. “It’s obvious. His siblings, right?” He stepped close to Ashe, put his hands on Ashe’s shoulders. “Rowan and Fina are safe. My father is a bastard, but he wouldn’t kick them out. I’m positive.”

“Then there’s no reason for you to come with us,” Felix said.

Sylvain continued as though Felix hadn’t spoken. “Let me lead you there. I know the way better than anyone. And I know how to get into the keep. My father isn’t just gonna let you walk in. You need me. I can help. Please, Ashe.”

Even if Ashe couldn’t hear the desperation in his voice, it was plain on Sylvain’s face and in the tension of his grip. 

“Alright,” Ashe said.

“What?” Felix snapped.

Ashe gave him a sympathetic look. “Sylvain is right. The three of us don’t really know where we’re going--”

“I know how to get to Gautier.”

“--and we certainly can’t fight those dragons on our own.”

“Two more people won’t change that,” Felix said.

“It might,” Ashe said. 

“He’s right,” Annette said. 

Felix’s eyes went wide, as though the two of them had just executed some spectacular betrayal. 

“Ashe is correct,” Annette went on. “Two more people might actually make a difference. And Sylvain is going to know the way better than anyone. We don’t even have a map. We’re blind. We need all the help we can get.” 

Sylvain had stepped away. He regarded them with hope, wild and unabashed. Something in Ashe’s chest ached for him then. Goddess, was he really this desperate just to stay in Felix’s orbit? 

Ashe shook off the thought. He didn’t know what had passed between the two of them, but he was sure it was more complicated than it looked – and that Felix would never, ever address it without a push. But that was a problem for another day. 

For now...

“Claude, do you mind?” Ashe said.

Claude waved at the stable. “As I told you, I’ve got far more horses than I can feed. So they’re going to get ridden out of here or they’re going to be dinner. Two more are easy enough for me to spare.”

“Thank you,” Ashe said. “And I think we even have enough rations for two more. It’ll be stretched a little thin, but...”

“We have rations,” Sylvain said, eager, far too eager. “Not that much, but I’ve been saving up.”

“Saving up?” Felix’s voice was so tight it sounded like it might shatter.

“I knew you might run,” Sylvain said. “I couldn’t let that happen.” 

Felix’s lips pressed so thin Ashe could hardly see them. Ashe ignored it and rushed on. “Alright then. Hurry up. We mean to leave now.” 

“Gotcha, gotcha.” 

Sylvain started to bustle about the stable, getting two horses out of their stalls and into tack and gear as quickly as he could. 

Ingrid was at his side the entire time, helping in silence. Ashe had to wonder what her goal was, why she was doing this. She didn’t need to rush around at Sylvain’s heels. She wasn’t in love with Felix. As far as Ashe knew, she didn’t particularly care one way or the other for any of them. Perhaps it was a simple matter of not being able to stay in the underground once she lost her only ally. It’s not like Claude and his people had much love for her. 

Ashe didn’t get an opportunity to ponder it long. Sylvain and Ingrid readied their horses with remarkable speed. Then, all five led their beasts outside, into the cool fall air. 

The monastery was calm around them. Groups still worked at the dragon, carving and carting away. Aside from the stench, the day felt almost peaceful.

Ashe knew it was an illusion. He scanned the sky, but saw nothing but lazy, heavy clouds wafting by. It was a strange, incongruous sight in the middle of a world he knew to be so horribly broken. 

Ashe swung up onto his horse and the others did the same. 

“Safe journey,” Claude said. “I’ll see you at the other side of things.” 

“I hope so,” Ashe said. 

He kicked his horse, not willing to linger any longer, not willing to ponder the strange, horrible twists in the road ahead. All he could do was keep riding forward, hoping he wasn’t too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Next time:** Extremely awkward travel companions...
> 
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	4. Travel Companions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group sets out for Gautier, but they need to worry about more than just dragons and gods along the way. Felix, in particular, struggles to reconcile past relationships with current problems.

Death waited beyond the ruin of Garreg Mach.

It wasn’t just the battlefield where they’d fought Dimitri and Andres, though that certainly held its share of horrors. Crows and vultures had moved in in packs, feeding on the corpses strewn throughout the rubble of the town and the fields beyond.

Even when Felix and the others passed the last of this grisly carnage, more death waited. The villages just beyond the walls were burned – whether by armies or dragons, Felix couldn’t say. The road grew more bleak with every step. It was not uncommon for them to find a body in their path, perhaps someone fleeing the recent battle, perhaps someone fleeing the aftermath. 

Every once in a while, Felix would look up and see something in the sky, too huge and too distant to make out, but circling and menacing all the same. It might have simply been a bird, but even if it was, it stood as a reminder of what else prowled those skies. 

The party making for Gautier got some small reprieve from the destruction when they put Garreg Mach farther to their backs and entered the thick forest beyond it.

Even here, however, they largely traveled in silence. 

What was there to say? They had a long way to go, a long and dangerous way. At night, they would build a fire, but keep it alive only long enough to prepare a meal. Better to be cold and huddle up in blankets and cloaks than to put up a glowing beacon. 

The forest hunkered close around them, crisp and sharp, the leaves outlined in frost most mornings. The cold made Felix ache. He suspected his companions weren’t faring much better from the silent, dreary way they carried out the business of tearing down camp. 

Even Sylvain wasn’t very talkative as the group made their way among the trees. For that Felix could only be grateful. Sylvain spoke up once to tell them which fork in the road to favor, but aside from that, he mostly kept the peace those first few days. 

Small blessings.

The trees loomed overhead, the uniformity of the light that managed to squeeze between the treetops blurring each day into the next. Birds tittered in the foliage. Squirrels and small animals leapt away from the horses as the group followed the trail they’d once all walked as students arriving at the Officers Academy. 

Felix could almost believe things were normal. He couldn’t often see the sky. The forest was, by all appearances, thriving and whole, just the way it had been before. 

He was even traveling with the people he would have been with before. Having most of the former Blue Lions house around him only made this brief space of peace more unsettling for Felix, though. Traveling with Ashe and Annette had carried an edge of danger and uncertainty for a long time, but having Sylvain and Ingrid here...

Felix glanced aside, daring to sneak a look at the pair. Ingrid was muttering something into Sylvain’s ear, their horses walking so close the animals were nearly touching. 

Ingrid had spoken little in the days they’d been on the road. She was silent, efficient and blank, neither smiling nor glowering. Somehow that set Felix more on edge than if she simply came out and snapped at him. She wanted to, didn’t she? The only hint of Ingrid’s motivations was her occasional glare when Felix snarled at Sylvain. But she never actually spoke up, never did more than briefly narrow her eyes. 

She narrowed them now.

Felix jerked his gaze away when she caught him watching. The path was wide enough for the carts and carriages many students used to arrive at the Academy in; it was well wide enough for Felix to ride beside her and Sylvain. 

Instead, he hung back, staying between Ashe and Annette. The duo could lead. They knew the way, after all. Wasn’t that their excuse for being here?

“We should take a rest,” Sylvain said. 

“Is it time already?” Ashe said. He looked up, but the tree cover was thick enough to block any clear view of the sky. 

“A little early,” Sylvain said, “but the forest is going to thin out before the end of this day and when that happens we need to either stop or move quicker.” 

He didn’t mention the looming threat in the heavens, but he didn’t need to. It was clear to Felix, and likely everyone else, that the moment they weren’t concealed by the forest they became easier targets for the dragons. 

Everyone slowed their horses. Felix was grateful to hop to the ground. His legs and ass felt sore from so much riding and there were many weary days ahead. They picketed the animals, letting them graze, getting them out of their gear so they could rest. The animals would need to be fresh before they hit open ground. If they had to flee, it would require every ounce of speed the beasts could muster.

None of them voiced this as they prepared the horses, but Felix could tell from the tense silence that all of them felt it. 

Even when they got a bit of dragon jerky from their packs, resting on the ground to eat it, most of the little party stayed silent. Sylvain muttered to Ingrid, but Felix ignored it, focusing on his food instead. He was already getting sick of eating dragon, but it was most of what they’d have for a long time to come. Felix cringed to imagine how much more bland dragon meat would taste in another week or so. 

He didn’t realize he’d been staring at the ground until Sylvain sat right in front of him. 

Felix instinctively straightened and tensed. He couldn’t shake the memory of the last time they’d really been this close, back when Sylvain had been set on dragging Felix back to the Kingdom and potentially delivering him right to Andres. Bitterness boiled in his gut at the memory. 

“The road gets really open after this,” Sylvain said.

“We know.” 

“I’m just pointing it out.” 

Ingrid sat beside Sylvain, eyeing Felix warily. Felix didn’t even need to see Ashe and Annette on either side of him to know they were vigilant, waiting. It was more like a standoff than a group of comrades with the same destination. 

Felix’s hand itched for a blade, simply for the sensation of solidity. The closest one was at his belt, easily within reach, but he knew going for it would only make things worse. Ingrid, at the very least, looked prepared to pounce at the slightest twitch. 

“So what should we do?” Ashe said. 

Sylvain sighed, but it sounded more like relief than exasperation. “Move quickly. As quickly as we can.”

“What about rests and stuff though?” Annette said. “We can’t run constantly.”

“We’re going to have to improvise,” Sylvain said. “Little thickets of trees. Abandoned buildings. Anything we can find for cover. We just don’t want to be seen, right?” 

“What if there isn’t anything?” Annette said. “What if we travel all day and by nightfall there’s just nothing around?” 

Sylvain didn’t respond, but the tightness of his expression was answer enough. 

“Keep your weapons handy,” Ingrid said. She spoke right at Felix, as though she could see the little tremors in his hands, the ache to reach for a knife even now. 

“That’s...” Ashe faltered. “Is that really the best we can do?” 

Sylvain shrugged. Ingrid nodded. Variations of the same cold truth. 

“Can the horses sustain that?” Felix said. “If we ride them that hard, how long will they last?”

Sylvain and Ingrid shared a look. Sylvain’s shoulders were still hunched mid-shrug when he addressed Felix.

“Hopefully long enough.”

“Hopefully?” Felix said. “That’s what we’re riding out there on? Hopefully?”

“We don’t exactly have another option,” Sylvain said. “We certainly can’t fly to Gautier, even if we had wyverns. Walking would be even slower and leave us exposed for longer. This is the only way.” 

Felix ground his teeth but did not respond. Sylvain was right, unfortunately. The horses were strong. They’d all been used for battle. But no horse was strong enough to run for days on end without collapsing under their rider. They’d be doing a delicate balancing act in the days to come, pushing the horses to the extent of their stamina but just barely not too far. And they still might get plucked right out their saddles by some god swooping out of the sky to end them. 

“We don’t have to do this,” Ashe said. His voice was quiet, hesitant. “None of you have to do this. I tried to go alone.” 

“Stop,” Felix said. He reached over, taking Ashe’s hand, squeezing it. “You aren’t going alone.”

“I might be harder to spot from the sky if I’m alone,” Ashe said. 

“No.” 

Felix didn’t bother elaborating. Ashe would not dissuade him. Perhaps he just felt obligated to give them one last chance to save themselves. Whatever it was, it had no chance of making Felix or Annette budge in the slightest. 

“Hey,” Sylvain said, “we aren’t going to leave you. One person or five, those dragons are literal gods. If they want to find us, they’ll find us. We stand a better chance together. At least we’ll know we’re headed in the right direction.” 

“I don’t want any of you to die for me,” Ashe said. 

“None of us would be here if we didn’t want to be,” Sylvain said.

The scoff burst past Felix’s lips before he could stop it. He instantly regretted it. Ingrid’s sharp gaze snapped right to him. Even Ashe looked over. 

“Anyway, we should just make sure we’re ready,” Sylvain said. “Ing, can you help me with the horses?”

She nodded, but her eyes never left Felix, even as she stood. It wasn’t until she and Sylvain turned fully around and walked away that Felix unclenched his teeth.

Annette slapped him on the arm. “Was that really necessary?” she hissed under her breath.

“It...” Felix said. 

“Can you just not?” Annette said. “Honestly, they’re trying to keep us alive. You don’t have to like him. Just don’t antagonize him.” 

“I didn’t.”

“Please.” Annette rolled her eyes before she climbed to her feet. “I’m going to help them. Because they’re right – the three of us barely know how to get a saddle on. We could do with a bit of expertise about the things that are gonna get us to Gautier, if we even make it.”

She said no more before turning on her heel and joining Ingrid and Sylvain. They seemed surprised by Annette’s request to help them with the preparations, but they didn’t send her away, either. 

Felix exhaled a sigh. This trip was going to take lifetimes, and not only because of the boring dragon jerky. He glanced at Ashe at his side, but he only shrugged. Even he had no comfort to offer.

#

The trees, as promised, relented. The forest thinned. They saw the sky more and more often as they approached the edge of the concealing foliage. 

They made camp in the forest one last time before they had to face the prospect of open road. Felix was dubious that they should make a fire even that night, but if they only got one more meal that wasn’t dragon meat, he was willing to risk it. 

He leaned against a tree, arms crossed over his chest as he considered the road ahead. 

Once, its openness had been a positive. Harder to get robbed, less enticing for ambushes and bandits, allowing a clear view of the scattered towns and villages between cities. But now all those things seemed like quaint concerns. What Felix would give to be worried about thieves instead of dragons. 

Twigs and brush crackled nearby but he didn’t turn. If it was Ashe, he could relax. If it was Annette, he’d apologize and get it over with. If it was anyone else... 

Sylvain stepped to his side, planting his hands on his hips as he too squinted at the road winding away. 

The path curled between hills, disappearing as it dipped down only to reappear farther ahead. In the dark, it was a pale ribbon, a faint trail like starlight leading them through the fathomless heavens. Felix just hoped it would lead them true.

“We’ll make it,” Sylvain said. 

Was he trying to console Felix? Or perhaps himself? 

Either way, it wasn’t a statement Felix had any obligation to respond to. He grunted, noncommittal. Hopefully that was good enough to send Sylvain on his way.

It wasn’t.

“Remember when we rode out this way as students?” Sylvain said. He waited a beat, then continued as though Felix had replied. “I was fascinated by all the towns and stuff. I’m sure they’re all still out there. We’ll find the cover we need to get through this.”

“Maybe.” 

“I had never seen things like that,” Sylvain said. “I mean, I’d traveled around the Kingdom and all that, but everywhere’s a little different, you know? Different customs. Different ways of thatching a roof even. I never really thought about it before then.”

“What do you want?” It was a touch sharp, but Felix had no idea what Sylvain was rambling about and didn’t want to spend half the night solving riddles. 

“Just making conversation,” Sylvain said. “Ashe is cooking. Ingrid’s cleaning weapons. Annette’s with Ashe. The road gets boring. I thought we could just talk.”

“Not interested.” 

The facade broke. “Come on, Felix. Can you give me half a chance?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m here to help? Because I helped before? You might recall that I was the one who figured out where Ashe was and took you to him. He probably would have actually gotten hanged if I hadn’t--”

Felix moved so quickly it even surprised himself. In an instant, he had Sylvain by the front of his shirt and shoved against the tree Felix had been leaning against. 

“Stop talking.” 

“I’m just saying.” Even with Felix’s hand tightening on the front of his shirt, Sylvain still managed to shrug. 

“Stop saying, then.” 

“What is it with you? I’m trying to help.” 

“Your help always comes at a price,” Felix said. “What do you want? Why are you shoving this shit back in my face like I owe you anything?” 

Sylvain finally sobered, glancing aside. “I just wanted you to talk to me, OK?”

“Great. We’re talking.” 

He gave Sylvain a shove before releasing his shirt. Sylvain smoothed the rumpled garment. 

“I just--”

“No,” Felix said. “You want something. You always want something. I don’t know why you’re helping us this time, but whatever the price is, you’re going to be disappointed. Can you do anything just to do it? Can you actually manage to help someone just for the sake of helping them?” 

Felix was breathless when he stopped. The words had tumbled out of his mouth on their own, like they’d been lurking somewhere deep in his chest just waiting for the right moment to spill out.

He crossed his arms again. He wasn’t wrong. Yes, Sylvain had been the one who’d learned where Ashe was being held. Yes, Sylvain had helped Felix find him. All of that was true. But would Sylvain have done any of that if he didn’t think he could get something from it? Felix seriously doubted that. 

It was no different now. From the moment Sylvain had offered his help, Felix braced to learn what the price was.

“You aren’t exactly charitable either,” Sylvain said. His voice had lowered to a cold rasp. 

“Don’t.”

“You came to my bed more than a couple times when you just wanted a warm body,” Sylvain said. “Are you going to pretend that was for my sake?”

“No,” Felix bit out. “I never pretended it was.” 

Sylvain sneered. “I suppose that much is true.”

He stepped away from the tree. Felix refused to flinch, even when Sylvain got so close their shoes were nearly touching. Sylvain looked down with a mixture of anger and longing that made Felix want to bolt, but he stubbornly held his ground. 

“What the fuck is your problem, Felix? What did I do?”

“Besides capture us and try to drag us back to multiple people who would have been happy to kill us?” 

“Yeah,” Sylvain said, “besides that.” 

Felix rolled his eyes. “Idiot.”

“It wasn’t that,” Sylvain said. “We both know it wasn’t that.” 

Felix didn’t bother responding. 

“I was just doing what I had to do,” Sylvain said.

“So was I.”

Sylvain’s nostrils flared, but he stepped back. His lips tightened into a thin grimace. He looked nauseous almost, mouth curled with disgust. “You were, weren’t you? Goddess. You really were. I was just a task you had to accomplish to get by.” 

Sylvain turned away at last, but he didn’t return to the campsite where Ashe was ladling out bowls of watery stew. He stomped right past it, crunching through the forest until he was absorbed by the dark greenery. 

The three at the campfire all turned their eyes toward Felix. 

He grit his teeth. His stomach flipped as he replayed his own words in his head. _So was I._ It wasn’t untrue, but Felix suddenly wished he’d just said nothing at all instead. 

_So was I._

“Fuck...” Felix muttered.

#

No birds sang the next morning. The edge of the forest was silent, the world beyond it even quieter somehow. Aside from the clomp of horse hooves on the beaten dirt of the road, Felix didn’t hear a sound. The whole world held its breath. 

Part of Felix preferred it that way. He’d gotten the expected hushed questions from Ashe and Annette last night, but had refused to elaborate on what had made Sylvain storm away in the dark. He’d returned, eventually, so what did it matter? Things were just as bad as they’d been since the moment they’d all left Garreg Mach. If Sylvain was a little angrier with Felix than before, who could even tell? 

Plus, their speed didn’t exactly facilitate conversation. They were moving as rapidly as Ingrid and Sylvain thought the horses could handle, trying to stay on open road for as little time as they could manage. Apparently, the cost of a full out gallop didn’t gain them anything over a trot, so it wasn’t a sprint, but it was still fast enough to leave man and horse alike exhausted. Any time they found a building or thicket or ruin of any sort, they paused, letting the horses catch their breath, giving themselves a short break as well, scanning the skies. 

A couple times, Felix thought he saw something, but it was distant. So he hoped, at least. It was hard to tell if that smudge of shadow against the cool sky was a bird or a dragon, whether it was directly overhead or far distant. With the size of the damn beasts, they could have been much farther – or much closer – than they seemed. 

But they made it through that first day and even the next. The horses were tired – the humans were tired – but they were surviving. And, for the time being, the skies were clear.

Until they weren’t.

Ashe spotted the shadow on the horizon first. They all took note of it, but kept moving. It was still far. It was still distant.

They were still convincing themselves of that even as it grew larger, even as they could all now see the unmistakable beat of massive wings. Even as they heard the rumbling of the dragon headed toward them.

“We need cover,” Ingrid said. “Now.” 

Nobody argued. They darted for the first burned out village they saw, gathering the horses in a run down building still mostly intact, gathering their weapons for the fight ahead. 

Then they took up positions in other buildings, dispersing themselves through the village. Felix was close to the ground, his swords ready. Ashe and Annette had found a grain tower that wasn’t completely destroyed and climbed up to get some height. Ingrid and Sylvain were hiding behind carts, as prepared as Felix to leap out. 

For a moment, everything was still. There was no sound, neither beating wings nor snorting breaths nor scraping claws. 

Then a great wind gusted through the village, like a storm condensed to only this one spot. 

The day grew dark as the dragon blotted out the sunlight, massive wings unfurled as it landed right in the village, right on top of all of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!
> 
> Did you know there’s an actual Ashelix Week coming up??? Oct 17-24, 2020, will be Ashelix Week. Come create some good, good Ashelix.


	5. Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trapped in the village with another dragon, the party has no choice but to try to fight their way out. But they don't have the help of Claude and his people this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is going to update every Sunday from now until Ashelix Week! Then it will conclude on the Free Day of Ashelix Week.

Nothing moved.

Not the horses. Not Ashe. Not the dragon standing in the middle of the burned out village.

Ashe strung his bow as quietly as he could. He had to look away from the beast menacing the village for just a moment, but even that made his blood go cold. He finished stringing the bow and peered out of the building he hid inside.

The structure was hardly still standing, but it was the tallest stable place Ashe had been able to find as he and the others dove for cover throughout the village. He looked out through the shell of a window, its glass or shutters completely gone at this point. There were holes in the floor. Even as Ashe froze in place with his bow in his hands the old floorboards creaked. 

Outside was not much better. He could see Felix crouched behind the ruin of an overturned cart, a sword already bare in his hand. Sylvain was around the side of a building. Ingrid was on the far other side of the village just visible in a doorway. Annette lingered outside the town, prepared to support them from farther back since she was really the only one skilled with white magic. 

And in the center of it all was the dragon.

It rose up on all fours, its massive legs flexing so it could tower over the village. From his little window, Ashe was barely at chest level. He could hear the beast snorting and huffing – trying to sniff them out? 

It turned its enormous head from side to side. Ashe hardly dared to breathe. It knew they were here. It definitely knew they were here. Just how good was its sense of smell, though?

Its crest gave Ashe few hints. It almost looked like a flower, its petals folded up, perhaps a rose. Ashe thought he recognized it, but he was no crest scholar. The Sky, Crusher and Dark dragons all carried crests that looked like flowers to Ashe, but if he had to guess he would have leaned closest to Sky Dragon.

But what did that even help them? Was it any better or worse than if this was the Dark Dragon? It still pitted five crestless humans against an actual god. 

The dragon lowered its head, nuzzling at a cart. Ashe reached for an arrow. Felix was right next to that cart, somehow holding still even as the dragon drew closer and closer. 

Ashe set the arrow against the string. It wouldn’t be enough to kill or even really harm the dragon, but it might stop it from eating Felix if it found him.

And it sure looked like it was about to find him. 

Even from his window, Ashe could tell Felix was tensing, preparing to strike. He had to know the attack would prove feckless. If that thing found him a sword would hardly do more than agitate it.

The dragon swatted at the cart, sending it careening through the village. It crashed into the building Ashe was in and the entire structure rocked. Ashe dropped his arrow, clamping a hand over his mouth to stop himself from yelping as the building lurched.

Finally, the rocking stopped. Ashe groped for his arrow, but he was far more interested in what was happening on the ground.

The dragon seemed annoyed at its lack of discovery. Felix was still hidden behind the other cart. The dragon raised its head back up, huffing in an oddly human gesture of annoyance. 

Ashe got his arrow back against the string. It could lunge at any moment, snapping at Felix or Ingrid or any of them, really. And that was only the most obvious way it could kill them. They truly had no idea what kind of magic the beast held. The dragon back in Garreg Mach hadn’t shown any abilities of that sort, but that hardly meant the same was true for the other dragons. 

The dragon unfurled its wings, punching holes into buildings as it did. 

Then it flapped.

It was only a single beat, but it struck with the force of a tornado, blasting through the village. Even from inside, Ashe was blown back, skittering across the floor to strike the opposite wall. 

He scrambled back to his feet, expecting to hear the dragon attacking, but all was quiet outside. Far too quiet. Why wasn’t it attacking?

Then Ashe heard the whinnying of the horses. 

He rushed for the window. The dragon was looking right at the building where they’d hidden their horses and there was no mistaking its intent.

Ashe nocked an arrow. They couldn’t let it eat the horses. Without them, the group would move even slower, be even more exposed for even longer stretches of time. 

Ashe aimed. It wasn’t exactly hard with how much space the beast took up. Still, he tried to find a soft spot, a weakness. He had only moments before the dragon would smash through the building and consume his fastest and surest way to his siblings. 

He released. The arrow streaked toward the dragon. It didn’t find anything soft, but even when it bounced harmlessly off the dragon’s impenetrable hide, it grabbed the creature’s attention.

Now, it looked directly at the window through which Ashe shot. 

He felt the heat of the god’s gaze for only an instant before he sprinted for the stairs. Ashe only made it halfway down before the building exploded around him.

He crashed through wood and thatch and clay, the mismatched materials comprising the home. Ashe had no idea how long or far he would fall. He landed in the midst of a heap, his bow somehow still clutched in his hand. He didn’t wait for his head to clear. There was no time. He had to start going, had to start clawing his way out of the wreckage if he was going to get free before the dragon found him. 

Why hadn’t it found him?

Ashe couldn’t pause to wonder. He shoved a beam off himself and crawled out of the debris. He ran the moment he was clear, heading for the next nearest building. 

But nothing chased. 

He reached the side of a building and only then stopped, panting, mentally scanning himself for injuries. Nothing worse than bumps and scrapes, somehow. 

He’d gotten somewhat lucky with that fall. But whatever had stopped the dragon from digging through the wreckage and eating him afterward was not mere chance. 

Ashe peeked around the building. At last, he saw the dragon again. 

It jerked its head from side to side, body turning in a half-circle. Sylvain, Felix and Ingrid prodded at it from three directions, not really doing damage, but keeping the creature constantly off balance. 

Ashe reached for another arrow. Thankfully, he’d been wearing his quiver on his belt in case he had to flee during this battle. 

The next shot drew a deep, rumbling grumble from the beast as the bolt stuck between the cream-colored scales on its side. Its body was pale, like sand, but a faint green shimmer rippled over the scales when it moved, catching the light. It might be beautiful if the thing wasn’t trying to kill them all. 

The dragon focused on Ashe when he nocked another arrow. That gave Ashe his best opening yet. He didn’t pause, didn’t think, didn’t allow himself even a heartbeat in which to feel the terror he had every right to. He aimed and released. 

The arrow surprised even the dragon when it lodged in its eye. Turning to face Ashe had been a mistake – it gave him access to its most vulnerable parts. 

The dragon bellowed, shaking the very air with its cry as it lurched. 

The eye with the arrow in it remained closed, but slowed it down only a little.

Ashe hadn’t actually considered that part.

He started to run, knowing the dragon was far, far too close, knowing it could jut out that long neck and snap him up in an instant. He swore the air around him got hotter, like those massive jaws were drawing near, that toothy maw opening wide to obliterate him. 

Something struck him from the side, hard but invisible. A gout of air shoved him off his feet. He landed behind a building. Ashe was still on his back recovering from the sudden blow when the dragon’s head snapped past, its jaws closing on nothing. 

When that head retreated, Ashe saw Annette behind it, her hands raised. She must have cast Wind at him to shove him out of the way. He clambered back to his feet. Annette gave him a nod. He returned the gesture, all the thanks he could offer in that moment. The dragon wouldn’t settle on annoyed for long.

Indeed, when Ashe rushed out from the side of the building, Felix, Ingrid and Sylvain were once again slashing at it with spears and swords. Ashe’s heart nearly stopped dead in his chest as he watched Felix tumble nimbly out of the path of a swiping claw. Gods, Felix was close to the thing. They all were, but Felix especially because of the shorter range of his sword. 

Ashe reached for more arrows. His quiver was running low. He shot one, willing to waste one of his precious remaining bolts just to distract the dragon again, give it another direction to defend in.

The dragon whipped toward him, faster than Ashe expected.

The next instant, the arrow in its eye caught fire.

“Run,” Annette shouted.

Ashe dove back around the side of the building while she sent more fire at the dragon. The creature howled and reeled back. Honestly, Ashe was a little surprised by how effective the magic was against it. He’d assumed it might have more of a resistance. 

Then it began to glow.

Not just its crest, though that glowed first and brightest. After that, the dragon’s whole body began glowing, an iridescent white even brighter than its scales.

Ashe peered around the building. He could already feel the crackle of the magic, like standing too close when a lightning bolt struck.

Was that what was about to happen? If it did, was there anywhere in the entire village that wouldn’t be consumed by the magic?

Felix and the others were fleeing now, Felix himself rushing right at Ashe.

“Go,” Felix said.

Ashe turned and ran, putting the dragon to his back. He knew the others weren’t far behind him. Still the air boiled with magic, getting hotter and sharper every second. Ashe had no idea how far they had to run to get out of its radius, but he suspected the answer was too far.

They couldn’t run from this.

They all knew it, but there was no other choice. If they ran, they’d probably die. If they didn’t run, they’d certainly die. Better that slim chance than nothing at all.

The air vibrated. It made the hair on Ashe’s arms stand up. He looked for Felix and Annette, but they were as panicked and grim as him. Gods, they hadn’t even made it halfway to Gautier, halfway to his siblings, who would be alone again in a moment.

He wished he could tell them he was sorry...

The air cooled in a burst.

It was so sudden and so shocking Ashe stumbled, gasping in a breath of abrasively fresh air free of sizzling magic.

Felix bumped into Ashe.

“What just happened?” Ashe said.

“No idea.”

They turned together, but when they looked toward the village the dragon was no longer glaring at them. In fact, it was leaving.

Ashe couldn’t make sense of it at first, then he finally noticed the new group between the buildings, fighters mostly in brown, dressed similarly but not in the uniform of any nation on the continent. More and more of them appeared between the structures in the village, rushing at the dragon, assailing it from every side.

“Who?” Sylvain said.

But Ashe knew immediately. He looked outside of the village, back toward the road they’d been on, and there in the distance stood two figures. One was tall and dressed in a sleek but practical dress that reached her ankles. The other was shorter but stood with a leader’s authority, arms crossed under her chest as she shouted orders.

Annette was the first to name her: “Petra.”

Sylvain and Ingrid both visibly startled.

“How?” Ingrid said. “We defeated her in that battle. She ran.”

“No,” Sylvain said, “she retreated. That’s not the same thing.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Felix said.

“He’s right,” Annette said. “We have to help her.”

“I think she’s got it under control,” Ashe said. When the others looked to him, he just nodded back toward Petra in the distance. Or, more specifically, toward the woman beside her.

Dorothea raised her hands. Ashe couldn’t hear or see her chanting but he knew she was as the sky bunched and darkened over the dragon. The creature noticed it too. It bared dripping fangs at the sky, which was now knotting like a fist right over it. When the beast tried to flee, the soldiers kept it penned in, prodding with spears and swords. It swiped its tail, catching several of the attackers and flinging them into buildings.

It didn’t matter. They’d held on long enough.

Dorothea summoned her magic. The knotted clouds released in a burst. Meteor flew through, flaming rocks that pummeled the dragon into submission.

It tried even more furiously to escape, but the fight was over. Even as it stomped through soldiers, fleeing in a frenzy, it already bled from gaping wounds. It stumbled when it freed itself of the soldiers and the village, collapsing only a few steps beyond the buildings.

#

They did not go far after the battle.

None of them were hurt, not even the horses, but that was not why they stayed. 

Petra and Dorothea approached them the moment the dragon collapsed. 

“You are alive,” Petra said. 

She was dressed for war, soft leather armor covering functional clothing. Ashe realized she must never have gone back to Brigid in order to still be here now. Still, he said, “How are you here?” 

Petra smiled. 

It was Dorothea who answered. “We never left,” she said. 

“But why?” Felix said.

Dorothea’s eyes flickered to him, narrowing. 

“You retreated,” Ingrid said. “You ran after the battle with us.”

“We retreated,” Petra said. “We did not run.” 

“We were merely waiting,” Dorothea said. “It was clear you lot would do most of the work of killing each other for us.”

Ashe could practically hear Felix’s teeth grinding. Their entire group paused, working through the implications. 

“So,” Annette said, “so you were just … waiting to see who won that fight between Dimitri and Claude? You were just … waiting to take advantage of that?” 

“Well, yes,” Petra said. She made it sound like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Dorothea said. “We’ve been running like everyone else.”

“You and all these soldiers?” Annette said.

“Yes,” Dorothea said. “They’re all that’s left of the battalion from Brigid. We’ve had no choice but to stay together and try to survive, but this is not the first of these creatures we’ve encountered.”

Ashe supposed that made sense with how coordinated they’d been in dealing with the dragon. Gods, if it weren’t for that he and the others would almost certainly be dead. 

“Thank you.”

Dorothea and Petra seemed surprised by Ashe’s gratitude. 

“For saving us,” Ashe clarified.

Petra laughed, loud and hearty. Dorothea just raised an eyebrow. 

“It was only partly charity,” Dorothea said. 

“We knew you,” Petra said. “When we saw, we knew.” 

“Then why did you help?” Felix said. 

Petra smiled. “Direct. But it is not for you.”

She waved her hand as though shooing Felix away. He raised an eyebrow, glancing at Ashe, who could only shrug. 

Petra stepped forward, but it wasn’t Ashe she went to. It was Annette.

Petra took Annette’s hands in hers, speaking as though the two were alone. “I knew you would still be accompanying them. You still insist on this path?” 

“I do,” Annette said. 

“You ought to join us,” Petra said. “We will go another way. We will value you.” 

Ashe glanced at Felix. It was Felix’s turn to shrug this time. He watched Annette, but she just smiled at Petra. What in the world had passed between them? 

Ashe gaped when Annette leaned forward, kissing Petra lightly. 

“I’m sorry,” Annette said. “My answer is the same as before. I can’t go with you.” 

Petra’s eyes flickered to Ashe. “We will allow that one to join you.” 

“W-what?” Ashe said.

Annette laughed. “It’s not about that.”

“Then what?” Petra said. “Why do you stay with such companions?” This time, her gaze encompassed not just Ashe and Felix, but Sylvain and Ingrid as well. She seemed even less approving of the latter two, somehow. 

“I care about them.” 

The way Annette said this made Ashe feel like she’d said it before. Gods, had Petra tried to convince her to leave them before, back in the camp? The thought left him cold. He wouldn’t force her to stay, of course, but imagining this journey without her just felt … wrong. Horribly wrong. 

Petra finally released Annette’s hands, shrugging and stepping back. Dorothea’s arms were folded. She rolled her eyes at the whole affair. 

“There’s no convincing her,” Dorothea drawled. “She prefers the company of dogs.”

“That can’t really be the reason you helped us,” Annette said. 

Petra smirked. “It was not. We would have helped regardless of who you were.”

“Clearly.” Dorothea looked right at Felix as she spoke. 

Ashe tensed, but Felix didn’t rise to the bait. 

“Well, you saved us,” Sylvain said. “What do you want? What’s the price?” 

Dorothea and Petra shared a look full of quirking lips and raised eyebrows. Then, they both burst out laughing. 

It startled the party they’d rescued. 

“We want nothing,” Petra said. 

“The world is ending and they’re still collecting taxes out here,” Dorothea said, rolling her eyes. “We helped. The world is shit. Sometimes, we’re able to make it slightly less shit. Annette, Ashe, you’re welcome to join us. The rest of you … good luck with whatever dragged you out here.” 

Ashe chose to ignore that repeated invitation. “What are you hoping to do though? Where are you going?” 

Petra shrugged. “Wherever we might survive. Returning to Brigid seems … out of reach.” 

“Claude.”

Everyone turned to look at Felix.

“Claude,” he said again. “You ought to go to Claude.” 

Petra and Dorothea looked confused. Ashe spoke up.

“He’s right. Claude’s still running the underground. He’s been taking in everyone who needs shelter and he always needs more hands willing to work. It’s not glamorous but it is safer than being above ground.” 

“Well, that is an interesting idea,” Petra said. “It seems we were rewarded after all. We will discuss this, but your aid is thankful.” Petra exhaled a weary sigh. “And now I must attend my battalion.” 

She turned away, heading toward the felled dragon and the soldiers around it. 

Dorothea lingered a moment, eyeing the ragtag group. “Good luck,” she said. That was all she offered before turning to follow Petra. 

It was as close to a peace offering as they’d get. 

“Good luck,” Ashe said as he watched her walk away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!
> 
> Did you know there’s an actual Ashelix Week coming up??? Oct 17-24, 2020, will be Ashelix Week. Come create some good, good Ashelix.


	6. Gautier Territory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party is getting closer to Gautier, but are they in time? It seems like even as they near the city, Ashe just worries more and more, and Felix doesn't know what to say to try to help. Perhaps someone else does, however.

The second dragon, as it turned out, tasted precisely as boring as the first. 

If Felix was unenthusiastic about food before this business with the dragons, he downright dreaded mealtimes after it. Every time they stopped it was dragon meat again. Cured and salted stuff from Claude in the morning and afternoon. Chunks cooked by whomever was on stew duty in the evenings. 

Even when they weren’t eating, they couldn’t escape the presence of the dragons. Villages and towns burned to ashes were merely to be expected, but it was the footprints that really rattled the party. 

Any time it rained, any time they reached land that was soft and damp, footprints deformed the plains. They were enormous, the claws clear in the imprints made in the ground. The horses snorted, their nostrils flaring any time they got close. Even Felix thought he could detect the stink of the dragons in those monstrous indentations.

It was concerning to say the least.

Still, they were getting closer to Gautier now, their path blessedly uneventful aside from the footprints reminding them of the danger prowling the skies. That was a mercy. Slaying two gods had been something they’d only accomplished with considerable help; they couldn’t count on Claude or Petra to save them a third time. 

They therefore traded speed for safety as they pushed on. Any time a shadow appeared in the sky they dove for the nearest cover. Even if they weren’t sure, even if it might just be a bird, even if they were positive the beast was too far away to see them. Each time they hid and waited and continued only when the cool autumn skies were clear again. 

Felix worried that the delays were wearing on Ashe. 

It was difficult to tell during the day when they moved with such haste they scarcely spoke, but in the evenings when they paused to eat and rest Felix saw Ashe picking listlessly at his soup and staring off into the distance with empty eyes. 

Felix didn’t know how to approach this. He didn’t know the right words for this. He knew what it was to want to protect, but all he wanted to protect was Ashe himself. Felix tried to press assurance against Ashe’s lips with kisses as they huddled close in the dark, tried to squeeze his hands tight, tried to fall asleep with an arm around Ashe to let him know he was still here, still fighting, and always would be. But he didn’t know if any of it actually helped. 

He worried about it even while collecting wood for their evening fire one night. They were holed up in the ruins of some little town. A few buildings were still standing, including the home where the group had gathered. It even had a proper hearth they could use for their fire, hiding the light from easy view.

But before they could make use of that hearth, they needed wood. So Felix picked through the ruined town, searching for boards or sticks or anything that might burn that he could bring back. 

He’d been reluctant to leave Ashe’s side. When they’d stopped, Ashe had been dreamy and unfocused, his mind and eyes far away. 

Felix had taken his hands and tried to reassure him. “I won’t be long.”

“Where are you going?” Ashe had said.

“Just to get wood. It’s going to be a cold night. We can use the hearth.”

Ashe had nodded, but it hadn’t soothed Felix’s worries in the slightest. Plus, with Ingrid and Annette off to their own duties, Felix had had no one to look to for help but Sylvain. 

He’d shot a look over Ashe’s shoulder and at Sylvain, who simply nodded. It would have to be good enough, as much as it tied Felix’s stomach in knots. 

Ashe was probably tending the horses with Sylvain right now. It was their turn to deal with the animals, while Ingrid had to cook and Annette was inspecting gear. It was an efficient way to divide duties each night, but Felix’s mouth tasted sour at the idea of Ashe having to spend too much time around Sylvian. Would Sylvain question him? He could say the right words, comforting words, if he chose to, but would Sylvain choose to? Or would he needle at Ashe out of bitterness or jealousy? That nod had promised Felix that Sylvain understood, that he’d help, but Felix didn’t put much faith in it. 

The thought made Felix want to hurry through his duties. Strangely, it was the idea of Sylvain comforting Ashe that bothered Felix the most. Perhaps he just struggled to believe such a thing would be genuine and not a ploy of some sort.

It was strange. He didn’t feel jealousy about Annette, of course. Nor someone like Cyril. But the idea of Sylvain trying to get close to Ashe stirred something ugly within him, something that felt particularly small and petty considering their circumstances. 

He was probably just being an idiot. The whole journey had been incredibly tense. It wasn’t just his own trouble with Sylvain. All five of them were constantly on edge, constantly ready to worry or snap or startle. That made for an uneasy atmosphere among the tenuous group.

Still, Felix told himself he shouldn’t give in to the temptation to sneer and be cynical. Sylvain had genuinely helped him more than once in his life. Maybe he could say the words Felix didn’t know, the words that would help Ashe get through the end of this long, strange journey.

Felix was still arguing with himself as he returned to the house where they were staying tonight. He carried a bundle of mismatched materials in his arms: the boards of other buildings, a bit of what he suspected was a wheel, some dry brush and grass that might be a decent starter. 

He reached the back of the home, but paused outside it when he heard voices. Against his better instincts, Felix crept forward until he stood beside a window. The shutters were open just a little, allowing Felix to peek inside. 

It was difficult to discern the interior of the home through the gloom, but Felix knew Ashe instantly. Someone sat with him against the far wall, someone who could only possibly be Sylvain. 

Ashe’s voice was quiet, muffled, but the hitch to his shoulders gave away that he was crying there on the floor. Sylvain moved an arm around him and Felix flinched, but Ashe leaned into the touch, resting his head against Sylvain’s shoulder and scrubbing at his eyes. 

It was … sincere. Remarkably sincere. There was no other word for it. Still, Felix lingered. 

“Hey, we’re making the best time we can,” Sylvain said. His voice was just loud enough to pick up.

Ashe nodded against him and said something too soft for Felix to hear. 

“If anywhere is safe, it’s my father’s house,” Sylvain said. “Trust me. I tried to get out a bunch of times when I was their age and I never got very far. And it’s going to be even more locked down now with all this going on.”

Ashe pulled away, looking up at Sylvain. “Are you sure?” 

“I am,” Sylvain said. “Plus, you never saw how much everyone there loved them.”

“Really?” 

“Oh yeah,” Sylvain said. “That place was getting pretty old and stale and dreary. Rowan and Fina brought a whole new energy to it. It wasn’t just me on their side. Goddess, you shoulda seen how Berta adored them.”

“Who’s Berta?”

“One of my father’s servants. She helped raise me and my brother. She adored having little ones around again.” 

“You’re … you’re not lying, are you? To make me feel better or something?”

Sylvain shook his head. “Nope, not lying. I swear.”

Ashe looked down at the floor. Sylvain’s arm was still around his shoulders. He spoke too quietly for Felix to hear, but it must have been “thank you” because Sylvain replied: “Hey, of course. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Ashe said. “Is it? To be honest, I figured you were just following Felix.”

“Ouch. That’s direct. Suddenly I understand how you deal with him so well.”

Ashe laughed. “Doesn’t feeling like ‘dealing with’ to me.”

“Heh. Yeah. I guess not.” 

“Oh … sorry.” 

“No,” Sylvain said quickly. “No, it’s fine. I mean, it’s not like I don’t know. Anyone with eyes can tell the second they look at you two. I just...”

Ashe waited. Felix knew what Sylvain must be feeling in that moment. Felix himself had felt it many times. Ashe had a way of waiting that dragged the words right out of Felix. Those patient silences made it impossible for Felix to withhold anything. There was no pressure behind it, no coercion, but it worked just the same. 

Sylvain shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It seems like it matters to you.”

Sylvain shrugged. “We talked about this once. Do you remember? In that camp, _my_ camp, I suppose. Back when...”

“When you captured us?”

“I didn’t really think of it that way.”

“It’s alright,” Ashe said. “Yes, I do remember. ‘Why does he only look at you that way?’ Is that right?” 

Sylvain scratched at his hair. “Yeah … that’s the one. Oh goddess, I’m an idiot.”

Ashe reached for Sylvain’s free hand, the one not around his shoulders, squeezing it in his own. 

“You’re not an idiot. And my answer now is, I imagine, the same as it was back then: I have no idea. I can’t tell you what he’s thinking, but I can tell you that forcing the matter won’t get you anywhere.”

“I just want him to talk to me, you know? Give me half a chance. But we can’t seem to do anything but snarl at each other.”

“Maybe now isn’t the right moment,” Ashe said.

“Then when?”

Ashe shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m sorry, Sylvain. I don’t even know if we’ll make it to Gautier in time, let alone when the right time for something like that might be.”

“Ugh, I’m sorry,” Sylvain said. “I’m worrying about something so dumb while everyone else is trying to be heroes.”

“It’s not dumb,” Ashe said. 

“Prove it.”

Sylvain probably meant it as a joke, a bitter one, but Ashe called his bluff. 

“Do you know how long I pined after him?” Ashe said. “Annette can tell you. She saw the whole embarrassing affair. I’m the last person in the world who would call your feelings dumb.”

Even though it was dark within the house, Felix got the impression that Sylvain was smiling as he looked at Ashe now. They sat there for a long moment just watching each other and something tightened in Felix’s gut. Some instinct tried to warn him, but he stood frozen as Sylvain leaned down, as his hand slipped from Ashe’s shoulders to along his jaw, as he kissed Ashe right there in that gloomy little home, soft and gentle and yearning. Ashe didn’t jerk away, didn’t startle or make any sound. He returned the kiss, closing his eyes, holding Sylvain’s hand in his own. 

Felix broke out of his stupor, stumbling back. The pile of tinder dropped from his limp hands, clattering on the ground. He hissed a curse, crouching to regather the materials. 

Gods, he was an idiot. Why did he watch for so long? Why was his stomach flipping over itself? Why did his mouth taste sour? No one else had ever bothered him when it came to Ashe. What was so different this time? Why did he feel like he wanted to rush in there and grab Ashe away, protect him like he wasn’t a grown man perfectly capable of protecting himself? 

He jerked when the back door of the house opened. Sylvain and Ashe stood there, both looking surprised. 

“I...” Felix tried, “...found some tinder.” 

Ashe rushed out to help him pick up the fallen and scattered materials, but Sylvain just lingered there in that doorway, watching him, his face darkening from surprise to suspicion. Felix chose not to read too much into that and Sylvain, thankfully, said nothing of the matter. They got the tinder inside, starting the fire for Ingrid before she even returned from getting water from a well nearby that was still functioning.

Their meal that night was even quieter than usual. Ashe said nothing of the kiss. Even Sylvain hardly spoke and mostly just about the horses and how much longer they needed to ride. 

When Felix lay down to sleep, tucked into his blanket with Ashe at his back, a queasy feeling stirred his stomach.

#

Gautier sprawled out across the horizon.

It should have been a relief to see the city at last, to spot its walls, pass the fields and farmsteads that fed it, see the homes and businesses clustered together between paved roads, to note Margrave Gautier’s mansion there in the distance. 

It should have been, but it wasn’t.

Ingrid readied her lance the moment they spotted the two dragons within Gautier territory. Felix followed her lead, unsheathing a sword. 

They didn’t speak or confer before spurring their horses toward those walls, galloping with reckless speed.

The first dragon lay dead. Felix knew the crest on its chest, the crest of Riegan. This was the Star Dragon. The air around it still rippled with illusion, making it difficult to get close. Its blood soaked a farmer’s field, its belly open and entrails spilling out. Already it reeked. 

When they drew near, Felix noted the bodies around the beast. Some were crushed. Some burned. Some missing a limb or torn in half. All wore the garb of House Gautier, uniforms emblazoned with a crest that now meant less than nothing. 

It was not a relief to finally pass the Star Dragon and the havoc it had wreaked just outside Gautier. It was too fresh, the air still warm around it from its breath. They weren’t walking into the end of the battle but, rather, the middle of it.

The dragon within the city only strengthened that conviction on Felix’s part. 

It flailed around, destroying buildings with its tail, roaring at the soldiers poking at it. Felix couldn’t be sure how long ago those soldiers had dealt with the first dragon. Perhaps the two had arrived together. That was a terrifying possibility. One was hard enough to contend with, but two? Seiros, if they started arriving in packs there’d be nothing anyone could do about them. 

But that was not something Felix could worry about right now. Together or apart, two dragons _had_ arrived in Gautier and one was still alive. 

The group rode into the city to challenge it. They obviously couldn’t hope to search for Ashe’s siblings until both beasts were gone. What use would there even be in finding the kids if the city was under attack?

The streets of Gautier were littered with debris and bodies. The top half of a home was completely gone. A smithy’s roof was caved in. The destruction was random, meted out at the whims of the beleaguered god. 

Felix and the others dismounted when they got closer to the dragon. The horses wouldn’t get near it, they knew, but even if they would, Felix preferred to fight on his own two feet. 

Someone shouted orders at the soldiers, organizing them to rush at a flank, gathering them in battalions. It was a good sign, as good a sign as they could hope to find. Gautier still had a standing army and it still had some sort of organization to it. Perhaps that explained the first dragon. 

The person calling out orders spared a glance for Felix and the others. She seemed uninterested in them until her eyes fell on Sylvain. Her orders abruptly went silent. She ran toward them, her mouth agape. 

“Sylvain Gautier?” she said.

Sylvain scratched at his hair.

“You returned,” she said. “You... We can’t talk right now but … we all feared you were dead.” 

“Can’t say I blame you.” 

“After the battle, we fled as quickly as we could to return to the city,” she said. “Not everyone, obviously, but most of us. Where did you go? What did you do?”

“Some of us ran the other direction,” Sylvain said. “Claude took in anyone who needed shelter.”

“Anyone...” The soldier mulled this over. “That makes sense for von Riegan, I suppose. But how did you make it all the way back?”

Sylvain gestured at the group around him. “It wasn’t an easy journey, but we’re here now. We’re going to help you deal with that thing.” 

The soldier seemed to take a closer look at the rest of the party now and by the look in her eyes Felix suspected she recognized at least himself and Ingrid. 

“Who...” she started, but just then the dragon’s tail swept over their heads, smashing through buildings. Chips of stone and wood rained down. “We’ll talk later. Are you prepared?”

“Of course,” Sylvain said. 

“Then do it.” She offered a nod, but that was all before she ran back to her soldiers, checking on the injured, directing combatants and healers alike. 

“Come on,” Sylvain said. “We have to--”

Cold rushed through Felix at the look on Sylvain’s face just then. He was scanning their group, eyes skittering back and forth like he was searching for something. Or someone. 

Felix whirled. 

Ashe was gone. 

Felix spun in every direction, searching around him. All he found was Ingrid looking grim, Sylvain searching as well, and Annette wide-eyed and pale. 

“Where did he go?” Felix said. 

Annette shook her head. “I don’t...” She trailed off, then she turned, looking up the hill, through the city, right at the Gautier grounds. 

“He must have gone to find them,” Annette said, her voice small and weak. 

Felix hissed a curse. Of course he did. It was the most logical place for Ashe to go right now. He couldn’t wait for the result of this battle. He couldn’t wait for anything. Not if his siblings were right there and the city was under attack. 

Felix considered chasing after him, but Ashe was running toward safety and away from danger. Felix’s job was here. He couldn’t leave. It would be cowardly and it would leave the whole city more at risk, including Ashe and his siblings. They needed every fighter they had in order to bring down yet another god on the loose. 

All that flickered through Felix’s mind in an instant. He knew it was right, knew it made sense, but that didn’t mean he liked the decision any better. It settled sour in his stomach, leaving a bitter taste. When he looked to Annette, he knew she felt the same, but they needed her as much as they needed Felix for this. 

They shared a nod, the slightest of motions, but Felix knew the decision was made.

“You better find them, Ashe,” he muttered to himself. 

He turned away from the mansion and toward the dragon, his sword at the ready.

“Come on,” Felix said, louder. “Let’s make this quick.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!
> 
> Did you know there’s an actual Ashelix Week coming up??? Oct 17-24, 2020, will be Ashelix Week. Come create some good, good Ashelix.


	7. Gautier's Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashe rushes to find his siblings while the rest of the group fights the dragon within the walls of Gautier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Graphic violence

Ashe sprinted toward Margrave Gautier’s mansion. 

He forced his way against the flow of soldiers flooding toward the dragon ravaging the city. A part of him ached with guilt every time he passed a soldier with sword or lance drawn. His friends were still fighting. Felix and Annette were still fighting. But Ashe couldn’t stay.

He prayed they understood.

Ashe pushed on, urging his legs to go faster. The streets were neat and even. He wound between buildings, taking the straightest route he could toward the mansion. The home filled his vision. He’d only been to Gautier once before this – on the day he brought Rowan and Fina here, accepting Sylvain’s kind offer, thinking he’d found somewhere they could be safe from the war, safer than they’d be in Gaspard, at least.

Despite having only seen it once, he knew exactly where he was going as he raced toward the mansion. Rowan and Fina were somewhere inside that home, still safe, goddess willing. And Felix and Annette … were less safe.

Ashe swore to himself he’d go back for them, sending a silent prayer into the air, hoping it reached them, hoping they knew why he had to do this. The moment he was sure his siblings were safe, he’d be right back out there to fight with them, but after so long, after years apart, after being captured, fighting a war and breaking the world, he needed to see them. 

The streets opened as he neared the mansion. There were more soldiers, all of them flooding out of the grounds surrounding the sprawling building. 

Ashe squeezed past the soldiers and beyond the gates of the mansion. The structure wasn’t particularly tall, but it was still massive, pushing away the city to consume a village’s worth of space. There were stables, courtyards, training yards, buildings within buildings, turrets to look out over the city. 

Ashe froze. He had no idea where to even begin untangling all this and searching for his siblings. 

A rumble erupted somewhere in the city. Ashe spun, only then realizing he’d brought his bow with him. It wasn’t strung yet but he gripped it tight, needing the solidity of the reliable weapon. 

Far, far back down the city, near the gates they’d entered it through, the dragon reared up. Its wings beat the air. Its clawed legs paddled before it crashed back down. 

Ashe stumbled. The echoes of those footfalls rattled him, rattled the very stone and wood and thatch of the buildings around him. 

The dragon roared. Something flared. Fire or magic, Ashe couldn’t quite tell from where he was. 

He blanched, his blood going cold. They were all down there, fighting, potentially close to that thing. Gods, what had he done, leaving them all so impulsively? 

He couldn’t go back now, though. That would only waste more time. He had to press forward, had to keep going. The sooner he found Rowan and Fina, the sooner he could help them fight, but first he had to know his siblings were safe. Annette would be far back from the battle, ready to heal or attack. Felix would be close, far closer than Ashe cared to imagine just then, but he had Sylvain and Ingrid backing him up, as well as the entire army of Gautier. The five of them had nearly held off a crest dragon on their own; surely with the help of a whole army they were faring better. 

_Please,_ he prayed, _please just hold on long enough for me to do this._

He wasn’t sure who he was sending those prayers to anymore. The goddess? It didn’t seem like she particularly cared for humanity. Perhaps he was just hoping Felix and Annette would catch some whiff of his intention on the wind and draw strength from it. 

It had to be enough. Ashe turned away, hard as that was, and ran for the nearest structure. 

It turned out to be the stables. They were chaos. Soldiers dragged horses, who whinnied and fought. Some of the soldiers gave up, running on foot toward the battle. 

Ashe rushed for the next building. Double doors opened into the Gautier home itself. A wide, open hall was backed by a sweeping staircase. Doors on either side of the entrance hall slammed open as people hurried out. Ashe felt more lost inside the house than when he’d been running toward it. The doors could lead anywhere. This might not even be the main house for all he knew. Lonato’s home had been a shack by comparison and that was about as close as Ashe had ever come to a real mansion. 

He grabbed the nearest person, stopping their moment with a jerk.

“I’m looking for two teenagers,” Ashe said. “Silver hair. They look kind of like me. Please, have you seen them?” 

The person just shook their head and ripped free of his hold.

Ashe tried again, getting in the way of anyone he could reach, yelling in the middle of the hall, his voice echoing around the room. 

“Please, has anyone seen two children with silver hair?” he called. “Where are they? Are they safe? I need to find them, please.” 

People flowed around him. He might as well have been a stone in the middle of a river, the water surging past him heedless of how it wore him down to sand. With every person who brushed past his shoulder, Ashe withered a little, a horrible fear coiling in his belly, making him nauseous.

“Please, please.” It was a chant now, a hymn, but there were no gods listening anymore. 

“Hey.” 

He spun. A woman dressed for battle was watching him. 

“You’re looking for those kids?” she said.

“Yes, please.” He rushed toward her, only just resisting the urge to grab her by her armor. 

“You’re related?” 

“Yes,” Ashe said. “Yes, they’re my younger siblings. Have you seen them? Where are they?” 

“I think I’ve seen them,” she said. 

“Where?” 

She pointed. Ashe followed her finger. She was gesturing toward the open doors of the mansion.

He didn’t understand, not consciously, at least. Something deeper down knew immediately though and it turned cold with fear. 

“I just came from there,” Ashe said. “I didn’t see them.”

“Then they must have gotten there already,” she said.

“Gotten where? What do you mean?”

“The battle,” she said. 

Ashe’s clenched hands went limp. The soldier gave him a sympathetic look, but then just shook her head and left him there in the hall.

Meaning arrived like a cold slap. _They must have gotten there already. The battle._

Ashe blinked at the open doors, at the city beyond, at the dragon whose head he could still see above the buildings. 

_Gotten there. Gotten to_ there. _To the battle._

“No,” Ashe breathed. “Please no.” 

He ran.

#

The dragon was snowy white, but when the sunlight hit its scales it burned so bright it was difficult to look at. Felix raised an arm to shade his eyes from the glare. The beast reared up, pawing at the sky, before its legs pounded back down.

Felix and the others stumbled. Felix ended up reaching out for Annette. They steadied each other as the world trembled from the force of the dragon’s body striking the ground. 

Soldiers from Gautier flooded in. They were organized, efficient, well-trained.

“We need to help them,” Felix said.

“But Ashe...” Annette said.

Even though they’d shared that moment of agreeing to let him go, agreeing to stay here and fight, he understood her hesitation. Anything could be happening in the city. Ashe could be heading into a danger they didn’t even know existed. But there was nothing they could do about that right now.

“He’s searching for his siblings,” Felix said. “We can’t wait. He’ll return to us.” 

“Gods, I hope that’s true.”

Felix squeezed her shoulder. “It is.” 

Annette watched him. He wasn’t sure if she was drawing strength from him, or him from her, but either way, the world felt a bit more solid. She nodded and they released each other, facing the dragon instead.

The soldiers were already diving in. Many carried lances, prodding at the dragon from farther back. A few wielded magic, blasting the dragon from various angles. 

The beast seemed confused by the flurry of attacks. It whipped around randomly, destroying structures in the process, sometimes flinging a soldier into a building. It was terrifying how easily it could flick a human away, like it was swatting at a bug. Yet the soldiers from Gautier kept on fighting.

Felix rushed to join them. 

He had to get close. He always had to get close to these damn monsters. The fear that accompanied that hadn’t lessened since that first dragon back in Garreg Mach, but Felix had learned to cope with it, to accept the fear and push on anyway. It could make his chest tighten and his hands tremble, but Felix knew he would force his way through, would fight through the terror, shove it to the back of his mind, complete the task even as his blood ran cold.

This had all been so much easier when battle had made him burn hot instead, when his crest had pounded within him like a raging fire trying to consume him and everything around him. The cold left by its absence was chilling in more ways than one.

Still, he had to keep going, had to keep fighting. Not merely to take down the beast, but also, now, because Ashe was out of his reach somewhere. The sooner this dragon fell, the sooner he could find Ashe again. 

Sylvain streaked past Felix. He’d jumped back up onto his horse, somehow convincing the animal to charge at the dragon.

Felix nearly faltered. It was a reckless move, a crazy, hopeless attack. The horse wouldn’t hold its courage; surely, Sylvain knew that. Yet Sylvain rode in like he was charging onto an ordinary battlefield and not fighting a god.

Felix wasn’t the only one who noticed. The soldiers from Gautier all watched Sylvain, hope and awe plain on their faces. Was that why Sylvain had done it? Was it some weird pride or shame? 

Either way, it was taking him well within the dragon’s reach. The beast noticed the horse and rider barreling at it and turned its focus on them. Magic crackled in the air, building up like lightning gathering. Except this was colder, so much colder, like the cold emptiness within Felix was manifesting on the battlefield.

Icicles jutted up out of the ground as the magic released, like spears shoved through the pavement. They followed Sylvain’s horse, slicing through its hoofprints, only a step behind. 

The ice missed, but barely. Sylvain swung in close, scraping his lance along the dragon’s chest. Snowy white scales sheered off, soft skin exposed and bleeding beneath them. 

Sylvain kept on riding. Soldiers closed in after him, heartened by the sight of exposed skin on the dragon’s hide. They got in a few jabs with their spears and lances before the dragon reared up and beat its wings to knock them back. 

Felix braced against wind that blew like a hurricane condensed to this one spot. It pushed him backward, feet skidding over the paving stones. 

He had to get close before Sylvain made another reckless charge. Already, Felix saw him preparing for it, wheeling his horse around and leveling his lance. The dragon already saw him this time. The attack wouldn’t be a surprise. And the dragon wouldn’t miss. 

“Shit,” Felix hissed. 

He couldn’t outrun the horse, but maybe he could join the attack soon enough to keep Sylvain from getting his damn head torn off. 

But just as he was about to join the fray, Felix saw a flash of silver. 

His heart leapt into his throat. Ashe had returned. His siblings were safe and he’d returned to help them fight. 

But no, that wasn’t it. Because it wasn’t just one flash of silver – it was two.

Ice flooded Felix’s veins. For a moment, he was back in Gautier’s mansion, back more than a year, attending meetings, voices washing past him as he stared dully out into a hallway where two silver-haired teenagers ran past, playing and giggling. 

They weren’t laughing now. They were grim and armored, but Felix knew them, knew them from clear across the battlefield. One had a sword, the other a lance. They clearly meant to join the battle. 

Felix ran. He didn’t look at the dragon or Sylvain or anything else. He ran for those two silver-haired children. Maybe Sylvain was charging in recklessly. Maybe Annette had noticed as well. Maybe Ingrid was fighting along with them somewhere. 

If they were, Felix didn’t know and didn’t care. What were Ashe’s siblings doing here? Why were they suited up for battle? Who had sent them down into the city to fight a god? They were children, hardly old enough to go to the Officers Academy, if that place had still existed. Even in his panic, Felix could see how awkwardly they held their weapons, how unwieldy steel looked in their hands. 

Something crashed above Felix. Wood chips pattered down like rain. The dragon was attacking. Felix couldn’t pause to protect himself from it though, not while Ashe’s siblings were headed toward the danger instead of away. 

He reached them and threw out his arms, blocking their way. They stopped, confused, blinking green eyes so like Ashe’s Felix felt dizzy at the sight. 

“Turn around,” Felix said. “Go back.”

“Who are you?” one said. 

“Go,” Felix said, louder, harsher. “Get out of here.”

Other soldiers flowed around Felix, ignoring him. A commander was shouting, potentially at him, but Felix didn’t care. He could hear the dragon crashing around behind him. He had to go help, but first, he had to get Rowan and Fina away from the battle. 

“Go!”

“We have to fight,” one said. 

Felix sheathed his sword, growling, and grabbed them both by their armor. They clearly had never worn even simple leather like this before. He swung them around easily, shoving them in the opposite direction. 

His hands were on their backs before they could recover, pushing them onward as they protested.

“Everyone is fighting.”

“We have to join in too.”

“The margrave told us we have to--”

“Shut up,” Felix snapped. “Shut up and _go_.”

Something was happening behind him. Felix could hear it, could feel it. The air felt charged. Maybe the dragon was gathering up its magic again. Maybe the soldiers were pressing some attack. He had to get Rowan and Fina away so he could join the fight again but they had regained their balance and were fighting him now. 

Felix grabbed each by the front of their armor, gripping leather straps. They batted at him, but their hands were clumsy inside gloves. Gods, by their age, Felix had known a dozen different ways to break a wrist if someone had held him like this. They clearly lacked any kind of education in fighting. Who in all the hells had thought it was a good idea to send them out into this battle?

They stopped fighting him suddenly, green eyes going wide. Felix turned, craning to look over his shoulder and back toward the dragon. 

The beast was looking right at him. 

Felix cursed, shoving Rowan and Fina away, unsheathing his sword in the next instant. The dragon’s massive head was rearing up, jagged teeth bared as it growled. 

Felix only just had time to dodge away. The dragon’s head struck the ground right where he’d been standing. The beast grumbled a roar as it came back up, but it was undeterred. 

Rowan and Fina were somewhere farther away and the dragon seemed fixated on Felix for the moment. That was good. Well, not _good_ , but it was just about the best Felix could hope for given the circumstances. He stood a chance of surviving; Rowan and Fina did not.

Still, Felix didn’t like his odds when the dragon went on snapping at him. It took every bit of Felix’s speed to scramble out of the path of razor-sharp teeth, each as long as his sword. 

He managed to swipe at the dragon as he rolled, cutting soft gums, giving it a reason to pause. Gautier’s soldiers gave it further reasons, slashing at its hide, but their attacks did little against the stubborn, armor-like scales coating the creature’s sides. 

Then Sylvain charged back in.

Felix saw him coming from somewhere beyond the dragon. He was still on his horse, still rushing with mad speed, heedless bravado. With Felix now the dragon’s target, something about Sylvain’s charge looked even more reckless than it had before. 

Felix shoved that thought aside. No time for it between the dragon’s rage and Sylvain’s insanity. One of the three of them was not going to emerge from this confrontation alive and Felix meant to ensure it was the dragon. 

He ran forward instead of dodging back. The dragon snarled but seemed to realize something had changed. Instead of lunging at Felix, it turned, finally noticing the horse and rider barreling toward it.

Felix tried to get closer, tried to get in range, struggled to urge his body on faster, faster, _faster_. But it wasn’t going to be enough. He knew it even as he skidded under the dragon’s raising head, knew it as he lifted his sword to try to pierce the dragon’s soft underbelly just as he had with the first dragon. 

He knew it as the dragon lunged.

Screams mingled in the air. The horse’s, the dragon’s. Sylvain’s. 

Felix heard a human voice beneath the shrieks of the horse and the bellowing of the dragon. It pierced the cacophony to strike Felix’s ears, a desperate frequency that lodged in his chest. 

He couldn’t stop. There was nothing he could do by stopping. There was only forward.

Felix raised his sword, jabbed upward into the dragon above him. Blood gushed from the wound he sliced into the dragon’s belly. 

The dragon’s cries drowned out all else. It reared up and away, stumbling. Soldiers rushed in, following Felix’s lead, piercing the dragon’s underbelly with spears and lances and swords. 

Felix didn’t wait to see if the dragon died, whether it went on fighting or quietly succumbed to its wounds. Blood pounded in his ears, even more voluminous than the filth coating him. 

Sylvain lay on the paving stones screaming. His horse was alive, but dancing away, eyes rolling wildly. 

Annette caught Felix’s eyes. Her face was pale, drained of blood. Her eyes were so wide they were mostly just the whites. 

She shook her head.

Felix didn’t know what that meant, but it stopped his heart in his chest. He stumbled forward on numb legs to fall beside her on the pavement.

Sylvain was pale and trembling, eyes closed. He screamed and screamed, his voice going hoarse. His arm was gone. 

It was his right arm, the one that had been carrying the Lance of Ruin. It was just … gone. And in its place: blood. So much blood, still spurting out of a horrible, ragged gash. 

Felix blinked, but the horror remained stubbornly real.

Annette was crying, even as she poured healing magic into the wound. “Hold him,” she said.

Felix’s hands were trembling when he pressed down on Sylvain’s chest to keep him from turning away. He fought Felix’s touch, senseless, but Felix easily kept him down. 

Annette kept pressing healing magic at the ruin of his missing arm, but the blood merely slowed rather than stopping. Tears tracked down her cheeks, but her voice was steady when she spoke. 

“I need help, Felix. I need another healer. This is too... This wound is too much. I can’t fix it.” 

Felix froze, paralyzed with indecision and fear. Sylvain’s blood was getting on his hands as he tried to keep him in place. His face was going paler and paler, his eyes so far rolled back when they opened that Felix couldn’t even see them.

Felix searched, desperate. The dragon lay on its back, dead, the Lance of Ruin speared through its jaw, Sylvain’s arm probably still in its mouth. The soldiers were celebrating, hugging, shouting with victory. 

Ingrid was running toward them, her mouth slack. 

“Help,” Felix said. “Get help. Healers, please. Hurry.”

She said nothing, just nodded and turned away. 

When the healers arrived, they shoved Felix out of the way. He was too numb to resist, too numb to do anything but stand on the bloody paving stones and watch as Sylvain screamed and thrashed under their attention.

And then his cries went quiet. The glow of magic faded. 

It was over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!
> 
> Did you know there’s an actual Ashelix Week coming up??? Oct 17-24, 2020, will be Ashelix Week. Come create some good, good Ashelix.


	8. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group is recovering after the battle near the gates of Gautier. Ashe spends the time reuniting with his siblings. Annette reunites with ... someone unexpected.

“Cut it out, Ashe. We’re fine.”

Ashe backed off, settling on the bed, but took one of his siblings’ hands in each of his. 

They were like looking at a dream, even as they sat in chairs right before him in their room in Margrave Gautier’s mansion. The room had all the hallmarks of Rowan and Fina. Some of the books stacked in a corner were the ones Ashe used to read to them, likely pilfered from the margrave’s library. Flowers dried on the desk beside a little piece of parchment with hand written notes about their variety and uses. Their clothing, though finer than any of them were used to, was still plain by margrave standards. 

“Ashe,” Fina said gently, “you don’t have to keep holding our hands. We aren’t going to disappear.”

He released her, and her brother, but only reluctantly. In truth, he longed to do more than just hold their hands. From the moment he got to the gates of Gautier and saw them lingering on the outskirts of that battle, all he’d wanted to do was hold them close and never let them go again. 

They’d clearly marched down there with the other soldiers. When Ashe reached them, they were wearing leather armor and carrying weapons. He’d been appalled by the sight, but they were unharmed. In fact, they said they’d never even made it to the battle. Someone had blocked their way, a strange, angry man who wasn’t dressed like the other soldiers. As they described him, Ashe knew it had to be Felix. 

He’d searched for Felix then, hoping to thank him, to apologize to him, but when Ashe had found him, all the words had died on his tongue. 

He still shuddered now, remembering the state he’d found Felix and, more pressingly, Sylvain in. Even with healers crowding in around Sylvain, frantically trying to assist him, it was clear the damage was gruesome. They’d carried Sylvain away eventually and the rest of them had followed. What else could they do? No one even tried to stop Ashe, Annette, Felix and Ingrid when they entered the margrave’s home. No one impeded them at all until the healers got Sylvain into a sick room and closed them out. 

“He’s going to be OK,” Annette said. 

She was pale and trembling. Ashe pulled her into his arms. 

“He will,” Annette said. “Right?” 

Ashe had said “yes” at the time, but he still wasn’t sure if he believed it.

He’d retreated with his siblings. Somehow, the concern for Sylvain just made him want to hold them closer, shield them from the same sort of fate. 

He blinked back to the present, looking between his siblings. Fina, older by barely a year, but taking that weight on her shoulders, responsible and mature. Rowan, determined to protect his sister in return, and the biggest of the three of them already. 

Ashe took their hands again, needing to feel them within his grasp, safe and whole. 

“Please promise me you’ll never do that again,” Ashe said. He gazed at each in turn. “Promise me you’ll never fight again.” 

“Ashe,” Fina said, sounding wiser than her 18 years, sounding far older than she should. “The city was under attack. Everyone was fighting. The margrave said we had to go too.”

“He said you _had_ to?” Ashe said.

“Yes,” Fina said. “And he was right. We’ve been living here for years now. This is as much a home as most other places we’ve stayed over the years. Why shouldn’t we fight for it?” 

“Because you’re children.”

Rowan scoffed, rolling his eyes. “You went to Garreg Mach when you were 16. We’re both older than that now. By our ages, you were fighting battles, real battles. Why can’t we?” 

Ashe froze, eyebrows knotting together. They weren’t wrong and that was precisely what made it so horrible to hear. Ashe had been deadly by their ages, able to shoot a man through the eye from across a battlefield. He’d fought in several battles, including the one that had claimed their second father, Lonato. What they were doing was not only no different, it was probably morally superior to the things Ashe had done at their ages.

He found he didn’t want them following him, though. He could hardly bear the thought. Thinking of Rowan and Fina on the types of battlefields he’d seen, surrounded by death and slaughter, potentially getting captured by an enemy at some point – it left him nauseous. 

“Ashe,” Fina said, squeezing his hand, “are you well?” 

He drew in a shuddering breath. His siblings shared a glance, then dropped Ashe’s hands, moving in at either side of him, resting their heads against his shoulders, letting him put an arm around each of them.

They’d often huddled together this way as young children, in those bad, dark, long years before Lonato found them. The worst years. The ones Ashe remembered mostly as a blur of suffering and survival. 

Sometimes, even with Lonato, they’d found themselves sitting this way, seeking this familiar comfort. To feel it again so many years later, in such a strange time and place, made Ashe dizzy with nostalgia. 

“Ashe,” Rowan said. 

Gods, he was so big now. It was strange for Ashe’s youngest sibling to be the biggest of the three of them, but Rowan had seemed to collect all the height he and Fina lacked, though he was still no giant by Faerghan standards. 

“Ashe,” Fina said.

And Fina. When had she aged so far beyond her years? How much had she taken on herself when Ashe left them again, left them for so many years, only to reappear now? 

“I’m going to tell you a story,” Ashe started. His voice began soft, but he gathered strength as he went along. “I’m going to tell you everything that happened while I was gone.” 

Rowan and Fina shifted closer on either side of Ashe, nuzzling against him like they were just three lost and frightened children huddling together for warmth again. 

“When I got back to the monastery after five years away, the first person I saw was Felix...”

#

“I can’t believe it’s really you.”

Annette kept glancing to her side as she walked through the halls of the mansion, making sure the woman beside her wasn’t a mere specter. But Mercedes von Martritz remained stubbornly real.

She laughed now, a high tinkling sound right out of Annette’s memories. 

“It’s me,” Mercedes said. 

“Have you been here the whole time?” Annette said.

“No, no,” Mercedes said. 

“Then how?” 

Annette hadn’t expected to see Mercedes. Standing outside the sick room where they’d taken Sylvain, Annette hadn’t really expected anything. She’d been numb, mute. They all had. 

Felix had paced. Ingrid had glared at the floor. Ashe had looked between the room and his siblings and Felix, torn in three directions. It was Annette who’d sent him away, told him to attend to the business clearly most urgent in his mind. He’d left eventually, reluctantly, after Annette had practically pushed him away down the hall and Felix had assured him with quiet words whispered between kisses that it really was OK, he was OK, Ashe should go. 

Several anxious hours had passed before the healers started to emerge, each exhausted and haggard. They told the group to go to sleep, there was nothing more anyone could do. And they’d tried, mostly. Annette was sure she wasn’t the only one who’d spent the night tossing and turning in a strange room in the margrave’s home. No one forced them to leave, at least. That was a blessing. Annette was sure Felix and Ingrid would have fought that, likely with disastrous results. 

The next day, they’d tried to return to Sylvain’s sick room, and that was when Annette had seen her, like a beam of sunlight among the dark, chaotic halls. 

“Mercedes.” 

Ingrid, Ashe and Felix had gone on ahead after the initial shock wore off, leaving Annette in the hall with Mercedes, the hall she walked down now with her best friend inexplicably at her side. 

“I wanted to avoid the war,” Mercedes said. “I was tired of it, tired of all of it. I wanted to get as far from it as I could.

“Once Edelgard fell and we went our separate ways, I tried to hide, to disappear. I started a school.”

“Like we always talked about,” Annette said.

“Yes,” Mercedes said wistfully. “It was wonderful. We helped so many children.”

She cast her eyes down at the floor, face darkening. “We had to move twice.”

“Why?” Annette said. Even as she spoke, she feared she knew the answer. 

Mercedes shook her head. “The war never ended. No matter where we went, how we tried to prepare, what precautions we took, it always found us again. I had to fight as much as ever. We had to hire security – for a school. What did we even have worth taking?” She sighed. “No, I shouldn’t blame them. They were as desperate as the rest of us, just seeking a way to survive. I only wish they could have left the school in peace.”

She looked over at Annette as she continued: “We were rebuilding for the third? fourth? time on that day when the sky--” She waved vaguely. 

“Yeah, about that...” Annette explained as best she could, but she still barely understood it herself. All she could really offer was a closer point of view. 

“You’ve fought those things?” Mercedes said. 

“Three now, if you count the one here,” Annette said. 

“Goddess...” 

They’d stopped in the hall. The sick room was mere steps away. 

“How did you get here?” They both asked at once. 

Annette went first, summarizing the long, strange journey as succinctly as possible. She chose the version of events that didn’t include all that had come before, the moons spent wandering the continent with Ashe and Felix. That was a story for … another time. 

“How strange, for all of you to be together again,” Mercedes said. “It’s almost like when we were in school.”

“Almost,” Annette said, “except we never fought gods in school.”

“Didn’t we?” 

Annette cocked her head to the side. “What are you saying?” 

Mercedes swallowed, glanced up and down the hall. 

“I was not originally heading to Gautier,” she said. “The school, the one we were rebuilding when the sky broke, it was located near the capital. I thought that’s where we’d seek refuge, since it was the closest place, but shortly after we arrived … they did.”

“They?”

“Byleth.” 

Annette blinked. She’d almost forgotten about their former teacher. They’d been at the battle, but in truth, Annette had never really understood what side they stood on. Yes, Byleth had arrived with Dimitri, but they’d seemed to participate in little of the actual fighting. And no one knew what became of them after the mayhem. 

“Yes,” Mercedes said. “It was Byleth we found in the capital. _In charge_ in the capital.”

“What about Dimitri?” 

“No one seems to know,” Mercedes said. 

“You’re saying Byleth just … took over? Just like that?”

“The throne, the crown,” Mercedes said. “In the chaos, no one cared. They didn’t care if it was Dimitri protecting them or Byleth. Whoever could keep them safe, they were willing to accept.”

“And Byleth could...”

“So they said,” Mercedes said. “I didn’t stay to find out. It wasn’t right, Annie. Something there is wrong, foul. I left and this was the next best place to go. Certainly, Fraldarius is out of the question. I’ve heard things are even worse there. I didn’t arrive here that much earlier than you, actually, and when that thing appeared I knew healers would be needed in the aftermath, so I came to this house, following the other healers.” 

“Goddess, Mercedes, this is all so...”

“Strange? Confusing?” Mercedes said. “Yes, I certainly agree. I couldn’t have fathomed we’d all end up here of all places, let alone under these kinds of circumstances. It’s dreadful.” 

“What do we do?” Annette said. “If those dragons just keep coming and Dimitri is gone and Byleth is … doing something, goddess, what do we do about all this?” 

Mercedes stepped closer, setting a hand on Annette’s shoulder. It was a familiar gesture, one Mercedes had used so many times when they were students and Annette was fretting over something or wearing herself out studying or stressing about trying to perfect a new spell. It brought her comfort even now, despite the dire state of the world, despite the tremendously raised stakes compared to a failed exam or missed class. 

“I don’t know,” Mercedes said. “Maybe we can’t help the whole world right now. Maybe, for today, he needs our help the most.”

Annette swallowed, instantly guilty. She’d nearly forgotten Sylvain, even though they stood right outside his sick room. 

“Come on, Annie. I’m going to need your help for this.” 

Mercedes took Annette’s hand, leading her into the sick room. Ingrid and Felix were already there, each looking somehow more worried and pale than the other. Even Ashe and his siblings were there, the teenagers quiet in a corner while Ashe remained with Felix, trying to coax words out of him.

Sylvain lay quiet on the bed, staring at the ceiling with empty eyes. He didn’t respond when Annette and Mercedes entered, didn’t even glance in their direction when they stood on either side of his bed. 

His arm was still gone, of course. No magic could bring it back after an injury like that. But it was bandaged and neat, no longer bleeding profusely. Sylvain looked gray and sallow, but he was conscious and the thin line of his lips was despondent but coherent. That was, unfortunately, an improvement on the previous day. 

“Hello, Sylvain,” Mercedes said. “How are you today?”

He laughed, wry and bitter. 

“Does it hurt?” 

“Yes,” he bit out. 

“Do you mind if I tried to help?” Mercedes said. 

“Fine,” Sylvain said. Still, he didn’t look at her or Annette.

Even when they started gathering white magic, pooling it in the space between them, the space where Sylvain’s batted body lie, he hissed in a breath but otherwise didn’t respond. Annette wasn’t quite sure what they were doing, but she lent Mercedes any additional power she could summon. Mercedes’ healing prowess was stronger by far – it wasn’t even a fair comparison – but Annette could pour a little trickle of her more meager abilities into the mixture, join the current of the magic to bolster it just a bit. 

Sylvain held his silence, but some of the tension in his face eased. Whatever Mercedes was doing, it seemed to be working, easing the pain taut around his eyes and lips. By the time she was finished, he looked more tired than angry. That was probably about the best they could hope for. 

Mercedes settled on the bed, tired from using so much power. 

“You don’t have to stay,” Sylvain said. He still gazed up at the ceiling. “None of you have to stay here. It’s not like I’m going to run away.” 

Mercedes patted his leg. “We want to stay. We’re concerned.” 

“Why?” Sylvain said. “I didn’t die. It is what it is.” 

Annette grimaced. She’d rarely heard him so grim, so hopeless. 

She wanted to change the topic. Anything had to be better than this pall. 

“Byleth is in Fhirdiad,” she said. 

Eyes snapped toward her. 

“M-Mercedes told me,” she said. 

Mercedes nodded, explaining what she’d told Annette in the hall.

“What does that mean?” Felix said. 

“I have no idea,” Mercedes said. “I didn’t stay to find out.”

“Wouldn’t it have been safer to stay?” Ingrid said.

“I don’t know that either,” Mercedes said. “Perhaps. It just felt wrong and I … I was afraid of them, to be honest. I didn’t want to fight anymore. So I left.” 

Ingrid nodded, but Felix didn’t look satisfied with that. 

“Odd,” Felix muttered.

Mercedes shrugged. “I suppose, but it doesn’t really change anything. We’re still here. They’re still there. And dragons are still landing in the middle of cities and causing havoc.” 

“If only we could figure out why,” Annette said. “Or how.”

“What do you mean?” Mercedes said.

Annette flushed under the sudden scrutiny of her comrades. “Well, I just mean, it would be nice if this made sense, wouldn’t it? If it was all connected somehow. If there was a reason it started and a way to end it. But it just feels … random. It was Andres who broke the world with those red stones, not Byleth. But it’s Byleth who’s in Fhirdiad taking Dimitri’s throne. It’s all just disconnected chaos.” 

The room fell silent under the weight of that. It wasn’t just that it was chaotic, it was that without some sort of reason or cause, it felt like there was no way to stop it. 

Sylvain laughed, a dry rattle. 

“It’s not random,” he said. “Dimitri and Byleth, they were behind this somehow. They were the ones sending me after Felix. They were the ones so desperate to get him back. And they were working with Andres to do it.”

“Are you saying they knew?” Felix said. “They knew what Andres was planning? They knew about the stones, about everything?”

Sylvain shook his head. “Probably not everything. Well, not Dimitri at least. He knew you being gone was causing chaos and he knew Andres would do whatever he had to to get you back. He sent Andres mages at his request for some sort of scheme that Andres said would ‘compel’ you to return. But I think that’s all he knew.”

“Then it was Byleth?” Ingrid said. “Are you suggesting they used Dimitri?” 

Sylvain shrugged. It seemed to cause him pain, but he smothered it down. “Don’t really know. Just guessing, like I said, but Byleth has always been strange. They’ve always known more than they told us. Hell, they turned into … something … right in the middle of the damn school year, then vanished for five years and came back like they’d just woken up from a decent nap. So if you had to guess who was secretly in the know about god dragons breaking the damn sky, who would you put your money on?”

Despite the obvious bitterness, what he was saying made far, far too much sense. Annette rolled it around in her mind, searching for holes. It was certainly possible Byleth knew nothing, but it was no secret that they’d gone with Dimitri after the war, standing at his left hand even while Dedue stood at his right. Had they used that position to gather power for themself? Annette couldn’t dismiss it, but still...

“What would the point of all this be, though?” Annette said. “Why cause this or let it happen or whatever they might have done?” 

Sylvain shrugged again. “Power? They’re on the throne and not Dimitri so you tell me.” 

“This is ridiculous,” Felix cut in. “We’re just making wild guesses now. It’s desperate.” 

“No more desperate than trying to kill 22 dragons one at a time,” Ingrid said. 

Felix grumbled but did not argue. 

Silence fell again. The conjecture really hadn’t gotten them much. Byleth may or may not be an evil manipulator, but that didn’t really solve any of their problems. Even in the worst possible case, the case in which Byleth had intentionally aided Andres so he would use those stones and break the world, what did it matter? As far as Annette could see, that still left them exactly where they were: Somehow trying to kill 22 gods one at a time.

The cost of that was becoming steeper with each encounter.

Sheer luck had gotten them through the three they’d already faced, plus the dead one they’d found outside Gautier. They’d had the help of some other fighting force for each, whether it was Claude or Petra or the soldiers of Gautier. They could go on fighting, but Annette feared the toll would keep getting higher. Sylvain was already permanently maimed. It wasn’t just possible one or more of them would die; it was terrifyingly likely. 

“What about the source?” 

Annette startled. She suspected she wasn’t the only one. She’d nearly forgotten about Rowan and Fina. Rowan cringed now under sudden attention. 

“What about … that story,” Rowan said sheepishly. “You know, Ashe, that one you used to tell us. The one about the goddess making the crests, being the source of their power.”

“It’s just a story,” Ashe said. “It doesn’t mean anything.” 

“No,” Ingrid said. “No, he’s right.”

“What?”

“The source of the crests’ power,” Ingrid said. “According to legends, it’s the goddess.” 

Realization crashed into Annette like a wave. “And the goddess is Byleth.” 

“Somehow,” Ingrid agreed. “Something like that. You all remember it, right, when Byleth changed? It was because of their connection to the goddess.”

“So what does that mean?” Ashe said. 

“Go to the source,” Ingrid said. She looked back at Rowan as she spoke. “Like the story says.”

Rowan nodded. “If those dragons are tied to the crests, they’re tied to the goddess.”

“And they’re tied to Byleth,” Ashe said. 

This time, the silence that fell was not despair. It was too full for despair, too heavy with duty and expectation, too weighty. 

It was realization. The realization that soon whomever among them was willing and able would have to go to Fhirdiad. 

They’d have to confront Byleth. And perhaps the goddess herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Next time** : Felix and Sylvain go for a walk. The OT3 gets some alone time ;)
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	9. Friends in Need (Redux)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashe and Annette force Felix to go talk to Sylvain and patch things up. But he gets a reward at the end ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has smut.

Felix leaned against the open door to the sick room.

“Get up.”

Sylvain stirred on the bed. “Fuck you.” 

Felix sighed, stepping into the room where Sylvain had been lying around for days. “It wasn’t a request.”

“Yeah?” Sylvain said. “Gonna drag me out of bed, Felix?” 

“Maybe.” 

Sylvain scoffed, but started to move. Felix bit his cheeks to keep from smiling. It had been a guess, and perhaps an unkind one, but Felix had suspected that after so many days of healers and concern, Sylvain would respond more quickly and easily to an order. 

Still, Felix’s stomach twisted as Sylvain shuffled off the bed. He looked like shit. Smelled a little like it too. 

Sylvain had barely gotten out of bed since the healers brought him here. He’d endured more than welcomed his friends’ and father’s visits. While Sylvain had allowed Mercedes to ease his pain and speed the wound’s healing, he hadn’t bothered to wash and barely seemed to eat. His cheeks were hollow and covered in stubble. His hair jutted out in every direction. He tightened his belt to keep his pants from sagging down when he stood. 

And that was to say nothing of the stump where his right arm should have been. Even with the sleeve of his shirt pinned up neatly, it was a stark absence. Felix didn’t bother pretending he wasn’t looking at it. From what he’d heard, Sylvain still felt like the arm was there. Felix shuddered at the idea. 

“OK,” Sylvain said, “I’m up. What do you want?” 

“We’re going for a walk.” 

“Why?”

“Because you’ve been lying there for days and at a minimum they want to change the sheets.” 

Sylvain’s lips twisted into a grimace. “Why you?”

“I suppose I just don’t mind the smell as much as the others.” 

Sylvain rolled his eyes. “Fuck you.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that already,” Felix said. “Let’s go.” 

Felix turned away, only half expecting that Sylvain would follow. He did. 

When Felix left the room, he heard Sylvain shuffling along after him. Felix didn’t bother to slow his pace or look back. He wove through the now-familiar halls of the Margrave Gautier’s mansion until he reached a door he knew would let them out into a courtyard. 

The area spread between two structures, but was large enough to accommodate half a village for all that. The garden was lush this time of year, burning as the leaves on the tidy trees died. A stone path wove among a flourishing garden. It was clear the margrave had his staff change out the plants seasonally to keep the courtyard constantly in bloom. 

Only here did Felix slow, allowing Sylvain to catch up. He took a steadying breath as he waited. 

Ashe and Annette had insisted on Felix being the one to do this. Ingrid had been far less enthusiastic, but hadn’t fought the idea when Mercedes predictably sided with Annette. That left Felix outnumbered. And he didn’t truly have an argument against the idea except that he simply didn’t _want_ to be the one to drag Sylvain out of bed and try to talk to him. 

He knew why they’d insisted, knew they all (except perhaps Ingrid) expected some sort of reconciliation between Felix and one of his first friends in life. 

Felix wasn’t so hopeful. Sylvain glowered as he approached. The pair walked in silence for an entire loop through the gardens before Sylvain finally spoke. 

“Seriously,” he said, “why you? Did they force you to do this?” 

Yes. Kind of. “I offered,” Felix said. 

“After they insisted?” 

Felix couldn’t really answer that without it sounding like bullshit, so he didn’t bother trying.

Sylvain scoffed. “Right. Got it. So you were forced.” 

“Can you--” Felix stopped himself, clipping off the anger he wanted to hurl at Sylvian.

They’d stopped under one of the many trees dripping flaming foliage onto the path. Felix breathed through his nose as he faced Sylvain. They hadn’t always been like this. So why did it seem to get worse every time they talked? 

“I’m trying to help,” Felix said. 

“Why?” 

Gods, he was going to insist on being insufferable, wasn’t he? “Because … you helped me.”

Sylvain’s laugh was like ice cracking. “Is that what you call it?” 

“Yes,” Felix said. The anger slipped out, sharpening the edges of his words. He saw people glancing toward him and Sylvain as they crossed the courtyard but he tried to ignore them. 

“Yes,” Felix said more calmly. “It … you did help me. I’m … I’m not just talking about that. I just mean... Gods damn it.” This was hard. And miserable. Why had they forced him to do this? 

“Whatever, Felix. Call it whatever you want. I don’t care anymore.” 

Felix huffed out a breath. “You do. So can you just let me apologize?” 

“I don’t see why you’d bother. You’ve made it quite clear how you feel.” 

“Yes, I did,” Felix said. “That doesn’t mean I couldn’t … wish I’d done it better.” 

“The apology or the pity fuck?” 

Felix had to force his teeth to unclench to speak. “Both. I guess.”

“Charming.” 

His control broke. He grabbed Sylvain by the front of his shirt, yanking him forward. “Gods damn it, what do you want? I tried to be clear. I tried to apologize. You didn’t have to leave with us. You chose to join us. You chose this. So what the fuck do you want?”

Sylvain’s face flushed, but the longer Felix looked, the less he thought it was anger. 

“I wanted you, you idiot,” Sylvain said. 

Felix swallowed. It wasn’t new information, but that didn’t make it more pleasant to hear. “Still?”

“Yes. Gods. How obvious do I have to make it for you?” 

Sylvain looked away. Felix thought he heard him sniffle, but chose to ignore it. He tried to exhale some of his anger and frustration. They couldn’t keep having this same fight. The situation wasn’t what Sylvain wanted and it was never going to be. That was simply reality.

“Fine,” Felix said. 

“Fine?” Sylvain’s eyes were glassy when he turned back to Felix. He looked truly haggard. A leaf wafted into his unkempt hair, nearly the same color as it, and he barely seemed to notice. 

Felix moved his mouth ineffectually. He didn’t know how to _do_ this. Why had Ashe and Annette sent him out here to deal with this alone? Ashe was good at talking to Sylvain. They’d even kissed in that village. Why couldn’t he do this instead? 

Felix sighed. He just had to handle it. That was the only choice. He might as well be boxed into a corner, though fighting wouldn’t get him out this time. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. He hurried on before Sylvain could retort. “I’m sorry that … that it happened like this. I think I … took advantage of your feelings to just … deal with stuff. I should not have done that.”

Sylvain didn’t respond. Felix wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. 

“Thank you for saying that,” Sylvain said. “I didn’t realize I needed to hear it.”

“Well, it’s just the truth.” 

“Yeah, sure, I get it,” Sylvain said. His voice quieted. “But it doesn’t change anything, does it? You’ll never feel the things for me I feel for you, will you? You’ll never look at me the way you look at him?” 

Felix didn’t realize he was staring at his feet until he shook his head. 

Sylvain let out a shaky, uneven breath. It drew Felix’s gaze up to his face, now less red, but somehow more devastating for its placidity. “Why not?” 

Fuck. What was he supposed to say? What answer could he possibly give? Because Ashe didn’t back him into corners like this. Because Ashe didn’t need explanations. Because Ashe was effortless to be with, like coming home after years of fighting. Because Ashe _was_ home, as close to it as Felix could think of. He didn’t have a country anymore. Andres had seen to that. He didn’t have a crest, a family, even the mindless comfort of a side to fight with in a war. He had Ashe. But that was enough. 

More than enough. 

“I don’t know,” Felix said. “It just is.” 

Sylvain smiled. It seemed genuine. He stepped closer and Felix tensed, but Sylvain just put his arm around Felix, pulling him against his chest. 

He kissed the top of Felix’s head. “I love you.”

“I know,” Felix said. “...Sorry.”

Felix felt Sylvain’s laugh rumble in his chest. 

“I would say he better deserve you,” Sylvain said, “but we both know the opposite is true. You got lucky with that one, Fraldarius.”

Felix found himself smiling. “I know.” 

Sylvain pulled away. “I smell.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Think Ingrid will give me a bath?” 

Felix rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t advise sacrificing your other arm that way.” 

“Bastard,” Sylvain said, but he was smiling as he put his arm around Felix. They left the courtyard, heading back into the mansion, but Felix found his chest wasn’t so tight, his breaths came easier, his mind was quiet. 

Was this alright? He wouldn’t have considered this a positive outcome. Yet Sylvain did eat that day, and bathe, and change his clothing. And when they all sat together that night trying to figure out what to do about this broken world, Felix felt like he spoke to a comrade and not an enemy.

#

That didn’t mean it wasn’t exhausting.

Everything about the day was exhausted. By the time Felix retreated to the room he was sharing with Ashe and Annette, he sank wearily to the bed. 

He could almost feel Ashe and Annette trying not to ask him about it. They shucked off some of their clothing, preparing to curl up in bed with him. The sleeping arrangement had surprised Mercedes, apparently forcing Annette to reveal a bit more of her story than she’d originally divulged, but the others, and the mansion’s staff, were all too tired, stressed and busy to care. 

It suited Felix fine. He had his allies close. The two people he could trust without question were always within reach. If another attack came, he could get to them. 

At the moment, however, their closeness felt heavy, loaded with questions. 

They sat on either side of him on the bed, down to comfortable undershirts and unbelted pants. 

“So,” Ashe said.

Felix tensed.

“How’d it go?” Annette said. 

He exhaled. “Fine.” 

“It seems like it went well,” Ashe said. “When we were all talking earlier you and Sylvain...”

“Didn’t argue,” Annette finished.

He shot her a look. Ashe certainly had his moments of piercing bluntness, but Annette seemed to take pleasure in spearing right to the heart of something Felix wanted to avoid. 

“I’m just pointing it out,” she said. 

Felix sighed and pushed farther back on the bed, partially to put some space between him and his companions. They merely turned to face him, sitting cross-legged like anxious children awaiting a bedtime story. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Felix said. “We talked. It was fine.” 

Ashe patted his knee. “We’re not trying to pry--”

“I’m trying to pry,” Annette said. “Did it work? Did you actually manage to have a conversation with the poor guy?” 

Felix relented. Neither of them were going to give up until they got what they wanted. He gave them the story in broad strokes, omitting actual quotes to instead focus on the fact that yes, he and Sylvain had discussed whatever they needed to discuss and yes, it seemed like things would be less tumultuous in the future. 

“I’m glad,” Ashe said when he’d finished. “Really. You two have been friends so long. It’s sad to see you fight all the time.” 

“Not to mention annoying and unproductive,” Annette said.

“I understand,” Felix groaned. “Can we please just talk about something else?”

“Felix wanting to talk?” Annette said. “This must be a truly unbearable topic.” 

“We shouldn’t tease,” Ashe said, even as he struggled to suppress a smile. 

They went on jabbing at Felix, but he stopped listening. He was thoroughly done with conversation for the day. Goddess, how people could just talk and talk and talk endlessly. Weren’t they ever sick of it? 

“We’re boring him,” Annette said. 

“Whatever,” Felix grumbled. 

He shifted on the bed, meaning to move away, but Ashe didn’t let him get too far. He got an arm around Felix’s waist, pulling him close. 

“Hey, I think you did the right thing today,” Ashe said. “I know it wasn’t what you wanted to do and you probably hated it, but I’m glad you did it.” 

Felix wanted to be angry, to sneer something in return, but at the end of such a long day, after so many endless conversations, he felt even more strongly that he simply wanted to be done with words. He leaned in instead, kissing Ashe and lingering at his mouth for longer than he intended. It was simply too easy to remain there, too safe and easy and free of pressure. 

When he finally backed away, Ashe kept holding him close. He nuzzled at Felix’s neck, kissing him and sending shivers down his spine. Felix didn’t realize he’d closed his eyes until Annette spoke.

“I should go stay with Mercie or something.”

Felix wasn’t sure why he reached out then, but the moment she suggested leaving he knew he needed to stop her. The thought of her leaving was suddenly unbearable. He wanted her and Ashe here, needed them here within reach. 

He caught her by the arm and pulled her toward him. Ashe was still at his neck, but Felix could shift enough to get Annette’s lips against his. 

He’d nearly forgotten how soft her mouth was. They’d stayed together sometimes while they were in the underground with Claude, but toward the end, between the dragons and the constant needs of the overcrowded sanctuary, there’d been little opportunity for something like this. It was good to have her close again, to remember her taste, the contrast of her lips versus Ashe’s. The differences only made both of them sweeter. 

When he pulled away, so did Ashe. The three of them shared a glance, communicating with mere eye contact what had once required far more negotiation. Now, they’d traveled so far together and for so long that there was no more needed than that glance. 

They all scrambled into action. Felix was the most dressed of the three and hurried to discard everything but his pants. Annette shoved him to the mattress almost the moment his shirt was gone. She pressed her hands to his pecs, eyes roving hungrily. 

“I forgot,” she muttered to herself. Then she lowered her mouth, kissing down his chest, savoring the hard ridges of his abs, sucking at the skin just above his hips. 

He hissed in a breath. She was kissing him like she meant to devour him, but he didn’t particularly mind. 

Annette started working at his pants, but Ashe distracted him, returning to his neck to lick and suck his way up to Felix’s ear. Gooseflesh erupted along his neck, even as trembling quivered down his neck, into his chest, into his gut. Felix had thought he’d merely go to bed tonight, exhausted by the mental labor of the day, but suddenly he was completely alert, more awake than he’d felt in days. 

He reached for Ashe, dragging him to his mouth, needing that familiar taste, the scent of Ashe’s hair falling around him, the vibration of the little hum Ashe tended to emit at times like this. 

It was almost enough for him to miss it when Annette got him completely naked. Almost, but not quite. 

Felix gasped, losing track of Ashe’s mouth. Annette pumped him in one hand. When Felix looked down, he met her eyes, keen in the darkness. She licked at her lip and Felix trembled anew. 

“I want to...” She stopped, gnawing at her lip. 

Ashe and Felix both paused, watching her. Ashe shuffled toward her, stroking her face. “Whatever you like, I’m sure it’d be fine.” 

“I’ve just never, ya know, it’s always been you or … something different.” 

Felix couldn’t follow what she meant but Ashe seemed to understand. He laughed, beautifully rather than cruelly, joyous and free of judgment or accusation. 

“Then have it,” Ashe said. 

“You think it’s OK?” Annette said.

Ashe’s smile curled into something mischievous. “I don’t think he’ll mind.” 

They both turned their attention to Felix, who could do little more than raise his eyebrows. He had no idea what they were talking about, but his cock was half-hard and aching for more. He just wanted whatever was going to happen to happen soon. 

“Yes,” he said, hoping it was answer enough.

Annette chewed her lip again and grabbed Ashe to bring him to her mouth. Felix had little idea what he’d agreed to, but he didn’t particularly care as a naked Ashe and Annette kissed and groped right in front of him. They were both so beautiful, soft in some places, but what few people saw was the scars in other places, the hard lines of hungry muscle on those lean bodies, the bruises and marks from what they’d endured during the war and beyond. Those were rare things, precious things, evidence of how strong and steady and sure his companions were. 

Ashe eased away from Annette’s mouth, but went on rubbing his hand over her pussy. She braced against his shoulders, face flushed and mouth open so she could pant for breath. 

“I want it,” she said. 

“Go on,” Ashe said. 

Felix was still lying beneath them, watching, unsure where this was going but eager to find out. That, too, was wonderful in its own way, the ability to relent control of the situation, of his own body, to these two odd, particular humans who’d wormed their way closer to him with gentle touches and raw persistence. 

Annette started to move. Felix wasn’t sure where she was going until Ashe stroked his cock, easing some of the pressure, getting him fully hard with practiced strokes. It was only then Felix realized Ashe’s hand was slick and that he was preparing him – and had already done the same for Annette.

Annette perched over his hips, her hand joining Ashe’s on his cock. She braced against Felix and, as Ashe released him, angled him toward her pussy. 

When Annette lowered onto him, Felix dragged in a gasp. She eased down him, emitting a soft whine as she went. She was already hot and wet around him. He felt enveloped as she continued down until she was nearly sitting on him. 

She pressed both hands against his torso when she got him inside. A flush lit her cheeks; the gleam in her eyes was predatory. It made him want to shiver, but his whole body was so warm now he could do little but quiver. 

Annette rasped a curse as she started to move atop him, shifting her hands and hips so she could grind against Felix. He grabbed for her thighs, feeling the strong muscle flex as she pumped herself up and down.

Ashe sat to one side, but he moved closer now. Annette scrabbled for him, dragging him to her mouth by the neck. Felix could hear moans, but could not tell who they belonged to. It could have been either of them, or both, their noises mingling to make some new song. 

Their mouths didn’t separate, even as Annette started to buck harder, her body so slick around him that she could drive down to the hilt every time. 

Ashe’s hand wandered down her chest, groping her breasts before continuing lower. Felix knew when his fingers found her clit – the high, desperate noise that rose up could only belong to Annette. Ashe swirled his fingers around her clit, rubbing her even as she rocked up and down Felix’s cock. 

Felix felt that he could do little but remain how he was. Part of him wanted to grab her and swing them both around so he was the one on top, but instead he jerked his hips up as much as he could to meet her. She was gripping him so tight, seeming to take him deeper every time she came down. Felix groaned from the pressure around him, the pressure building in his gut. His eyes squeezed shut as he arched back on the mattress, searching for a way closer. 

He therefore heard, rather than saw, when Ashe and Annette’s mouths finally parted. They were both gasping from it. Annette’s cries, now unmuffled, were high and sweet, matching the rhythm of her body. Ashe murmured encouragement in his soft voice. Even without seeing them, Felix was sure Annette was still clinging to him and that Ashe was still using his devastating fingers to push her toward the edge. 

He could feel it, in fact.

Annette clenched around him, her whole body squeezing in close. Felix sucked in a breath through his teeth and arched up, needing to move, even if it was shallow and stuttering. He couldn’t stay still anymore, not with her moving like that on top of him, not with the room filling with her voice and Ashe’s murmured encouragement and Felix’s own rasping breaths. 

Felix found himself reaching out. He touched some part of Ashe’s leg, he thought, perhaps an ankle or shin. He couldn’t tell, but he didn’t really care. As the crest neared, he just wanted to feel Ashe near. 

They were both clinging to Ashe, then, when Annette bucked especially hard, voice rising to a cry as she clenched tight. 

Felix cursed, if there were still any gods to curse at. His gut coiled tight, everything pulling in close just so it could release as warmth spread around and through him. He wasn’t sure what was Annette and what was him anymore. The heat was all-consuming, a tide washing over and through both of them. He gripped her and Ashe’s legs too tight for an instant as it all rushed back out of him. 

Annette sank down on top of him, lying on his chest as he tried to catch his breath. He was still inside her, but neither of them cared just then. 

Felix slipped his arm around Annette, who cuddled in closer against his sweaty skin. Ashe was sitting beside both of them, gazing down at them like they were everything good and right in the world. It made Felix extend his free hand, an offer and a request all in one. Ashe took it, but remained sitting, squeezing Felix’s hand in his. 

Annette shifted, drawing Felix’s attention abruptly downward as she eased off him and then off the bed entirely. 

Felix sat up as Annette returned. She kissed each of them in turn, but lingered with Ashe, stroking his cheek. 

“That was so good,” she said, “but now it’s your turn.”

“Oh, I’m alright,” Ashe said. 

He might have been telling the truth, but Annette rolled her eyes. She shot a look at Felix, raising one eyebrow. He couldn’t help smiling in return. Together, they took Ashe by the shoulders and pushed him back onto the bed. 

“Absolutely not,” Annette said. “You aren’t going to do all that work for nothing.”

“It’s not for nothing,” Ashe said. “Honestly. I enjoy seeing you both happy.”

“And we enjoying seeing you happy,” Annette said. “Isn’t that right, Felix?” 

He just nodded. 

There had been enough words in this day. It was time for action. 

He and Annette lowered their mouths to Ashe’s skin. No more talk passed between them that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I make the rules for this OT3 and the rules are that Annette is the boss.
> 
>  **Next week:** It's time to head to the capital and see what Byleth is up to.
> 
> \--
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!
> 
> Did you know there’s an actual Ashelix Week coming up??? Oct 17-24, 2020, will be Ashelix Week. Come create some good, good Ashelix.


	10. Best Guesses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to leave and try to reach the capital. Rowan and Fina get curious about Felix and corner him for a chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2/3 of the way through this. The end is written and sitting on my computer. Really excited to show y'all the conclusion to this crazy thing!

Ashe knew they had to leave the next day. 

There was an energy in the air, a tension as he and Annette and Felix roused themselves out of the comfort of companionship and bed. Any business they might have in Gautier was done now. In truth, they’d probably lingered longer than they should. 

That in itself was a curious thought. Was it really longer than they “should?” They weren’t part of any army anymore. They were wanderers, people trying to survive just like everyone else. 

Yet Ashe knew in his gut that Annette and Felix felt the same way as him, that they felt the same weight of responsibility. For whatever reason, events had placed them in a position to fix things, if things were fixable. They had to leave because they had to move on. They had to go to Fhirdiad.

“We know,” Ingrid said. 

The trio had hardly made it out of their room before they were confronted in the halls. Ingrid crossed her arms under her chest. Sylvain shrugged. Mercedes looked apologetic. 

“You don’t seriously think you three are leaving without us, do you?” Sylvain said. 

“You’re still injured,” Ashe said.

“Yeah, this one’s kinda permanent,” Sylvain said. “Doesn’t mean I can’t help.” 

“This is going to be really dangerous,” Ashe said. “We have no idea what we’re going to find, what Byleth will be like. They might be hostile.”

“We know,” Ingrid drawled. 

Surprisingly, it was Felix who ended the debate. “Then get ready,” he said. “We aren’t lingering long.” 

The others dispersed, leaving only Felix and Ashe in the hall. Felix caught Ashe by the shoulder before he could head back to their room to pack up their meager belongings. 

“Your siblings.” That’s all Felix said, but Ashe understood. 

“They should stay here,” Ashe said. “We have no idea what we’re about to face.”

“No,” Felix said.

Ashe instinctively wanted to argue, but he held his tongue. 

Felix lowered his voice. “You said the margrave made them fight. What happens next time? What happens if there’s another dragon and they go out with the other soldiers again?” 

Ashe swallowed, blood draining from his face. “I told them not to fight.”

“That’s not going to hold up against a margrave’s orders. They’re probably safer with us.”

“What if we find a dragon on the road, though? What if...” 

“Ashe,” Felix said, “I understand why you want them to stay, but you can’t keep leaving them behind while you do something dangerous. They aren’t children anymore. I suspect they would choose to join you, if we asked. And they aren’t truly safe here anyway. If things are as Mercedes said, we can ensure they’re safe somewhere in Fhirdiad when we get there. We can keep them out of harm’s way.”

“Are you sure?” 

“No,” Felix said. “Nothing is sure anymore, but if you really think leaving them here will be the wiser course, then I won’t argue it.”

Ashe paused. He searched for some way to refute Felix, some hole in his logic. The road was dangerous, but barely moreso than Gautier itself if Rowan and Fina were going to be treated like common soldiers. 

“I hate this,” Ashe said quietly. 

Felix stepped close, pulling Ashe against his chest. “I know,” he said, the hardness falling out of his voice. “There are no perfect choices anymore, only better or worse guesses. We can protect them.”

Ashe wanted to believe it. He desperately wanted to believe it. But after all they’d seen and experienced, some part of him shivered with doubt, even as he nodded, holding Felix tight.

#

They never discovered if the margrave was upset about their leaving or not. They took what they needed, what they could, and left without a word. Sylvain promised this was the wiser course and the one that would cause them the least trouble. 

“Let him get mad at me,” Sylvain said. “Won’t be much different from usual. My father has better things to worry about right now, I promise.”

So they’d simply left, slinging their bags over their shoulders. The horses were a lost cause, absorbed into the margrave’s stables. They may have been able to get a few back, but certainly not enough for the entire group. They left the city on foot, hoping it would make them slightly less conspicuous, if far slower. 

“Fhirdiad shouldn’t be too bad a walk,” Sylvain said. “It’s about as far from here as Fraldarius. The roads used to be pretty clean. We should be able to follow them even if we stay off them to keep hidden.” 

That seemed like a fair enough plan to Ashe, though his stomach was still in knots for those first few days out of Gautier. The rest of the group’s spirits remained high, but Ashe couldn’t help constantly scanning the sky. They’d run into dragons too often and too easily already; the thought that they’d run into more wasn’t some far flung fantasy. 

They kept to any sort of cover as much as they could. Early on, Sylvain, being familiar with the area, took them through little thickets he said had once been popular for hunting. It kept them under the cover of trees, but still in sight of a road. 

That worked well enough at first, but the trees would not last forever and they all knew it. 

“We need to be vigilant and push hard,” Felix said one night. 

The group clustered around a fire. They’d made camp within a forest, the treetops thick enough that they could risk a little light and heat at night. According to Sylvain, however, they were about to hit a long stretch of open land. 

It made Ashe’s feet ache just thinking of it. They’d already been walking for days, wearing holes into their shoes, and now they were going to walk longer and faster, all while weighed down by the anxiety of being exposed by open land. 

“The grasses are sometimes long,” Sylvain said. “There’s a chance we could duck down in them if we saw something, but I think we’ll have better luck just hopping between towns and villages. There should be several along the way.”

“There are,” Mercedes confirmed. “But I fear most are no longer occupied.”

That sobered the group. Ashe had feared they’d find more burned out villages, more empty husks where there should have been thriving little communities, and it only increased his anxiety to have that fear confirmed. 

“Let’s get camp set up,” Annette said. 

Her voice broke the gloom that had settled over the group. Ashe was only too happy to jump up and assist her in getting the pots and utensils cleaned off. Wiping their limited dishware clean soothed some of the worry vibrating through him. 

He still felt like the decision to bring Rowan and Fina along had been the right one, but he hadn’t relaxed since the moment they’d all left Gautier. Ashe was constantly vigilant, even when he slept fitfully for a few hours each night. The slightest sound was able to wake him and send his hand darting out for the bow he now kept beside his bedroll. 

He went in search of that bow now, meaning to bring it and his bedroll back to where he assumed Felix was already setting up for the night. Ashe paused along his way, though. 

On the other side of the fire, he indeed saw Felix right where he expected him, crouching down and smoothing out his bedroll on a flat patch of ground. But standing over him, arms folded, were Rowan and Fina. 

“You used to be a duke, huh?” Rowan said.

Felix looked up at Ashe’s brother. “Not really.” 

“That’s what someone else told us,” Rowan said. “Fraldarius. Like the territory, right? So it must belong to your family or something.” 

Ashe flinched. He suspected Felix did as well. 

“It used to,” Felix said. 

Rowan and Fina crouched down, meeting Felix at his level. 

“Why’s a duke so interested in our brother?” Fina said.

Felix sat up a little straighter. Ashe nearly rushed in, dragging his siblings away by the collars, scolding them like he would when they were younger. But Felix just paused and gathered his words.

“That has nothing to do with it,” he said.

“So you are interested in Ashe, then?” Fina said. 

“I am,” Felix said. 

Even after all this time, it was strange hearing him say it out loud. 

“You know he practically raised us, right?” Rowan said. 

“Yes.”

“And that we were poor and everything?” Rowan said. 

“I don’t see how that matters,” Felix said. 

“Listen, Duke,” Fina said, “folks like you never really had much nice to say about folks like us. We grew up stealing from people like you, taking your pocket change so we could survive for another day. Unless we got caught. Then we’d end up in some hole somewhere. But you and our brother are awfully close. Do you see the problem?”

Felix merely nodded.

“You went to that fancy school with him,” Rowan said.

“I did.” 

“Did you know back then?” Rowan said. “Where he came from? What that was like?” 

“A bit,” Felix said. 

“And?” Fina said.

Felix shrugged. 

Rowan jabbed a finger right at Felix’s chest. Felix raised an eyebrow but otherwise did not react. 

That’s when Ashe finally stepped in, rushing around the fire. 

“Now, you listen--”

Rowan yelped when Ashe grabbed him by the collar, cutting him off. Ashe’s both and bedroll both clattered to the ground so he could yank on Rowan’s shirt.

“Hey!” 

“What in the world are you two doing?” Ashe said. 

“Nothing,” Rowan said. Fina did not respond. 

“Don’t bother Felix.”

“We didn’t,” Rowan said. “We were just talking.” 

Ashe looked to Felix, but he just shrugged. 

“Ashe,” Fina said. “We’re sorry. We just wanted to... We were just curious. We know you guys...” She waved a hand. Ashe was grateful she did not try to elucidate further. 

“I didn’t see you bothering Annette,” Ashe shot back.

“Annette is nice,” Rowan mumbled. 

Ashe’s mouth dropped open. Fina covered her face in her hands. Rowan turned bright red, even in the dark. 

“I-I’m sorry,” Rowan said. 

Ashe meant to scold him, but Felix reached up then, catching Ashe’s wrist. 

“It’s alright,” Felix said. 

His touch was calming. Even so, Ashe let out a careful breath before addressing his siblings again. 

“Leave Felix alone. He’s here to protect you, just like everyone else, OK? It doesn’t matter where we came from. He’s not judging us for it and you shouldn’t judge him for it. Now go sleep. We’re going to be traveling hard tomorrow and no one is going to slow down just so you two can keep up.” 

The teens headed off with bowed heads and muttered apologies. Fina punched Rowan in the arm as they got their things and settled down nearby. 

Felix tugged on Ashe’s wrist, drawing him to the ground. Ashe sat beside his dropped bedroll, shaking his head. 

“I’m so sorry about that,” Ashe said. “They’re just protective. We were all we had growing up. I’m their parent more than their brother, honestly.” 

“It’s alright,” Felix said.

“Really?”

“Really.” Felix smiled a little. “I’m sure if Glenn was alive, he’d be curious too.”

“The circumstances are pretty unusual,” Ashe said. 

“Maybe some day they won’t be.” 

There was something wistful in that, something longing. Ashe never imagined he’d hear Felix hoping to slow down, perhaps even to stop fighting entirely. He hadn’t ever really thought about it, in truth. From the moment they’d reunited at Garreg Mach all the way up through now, things had always been tenuous and fragile, stolen moments, secret moments, dangerous moments. A future that was anything but was … unimaginable. 

Until now, perhaps. It was hard to fathom a time when they wouldn’t need to fight, but something about Rowan and Fina’s concern, their innocent pestering, was so tremendously mundane that it reminded Ashe of all those quiet, peaceful times before the war, times when he’d merely been a student, when the future was wide open and thrilling to imagine. 

Perhaps such a future was still possible. Perhaps they could reach Fhirdiad and Byleth and find some way to set the world right, or at least keep it from burning down entirely, and then do something other than struggle. Perhaps Ashe could even have a family again, a strange, haphazard little family made from all these broken and scattered pieces, but that would only make it more precious. 

“Some day,” Ashe agreed. 

Even as he spoke, it felt like a promise.

#

Walls sectioned out the city of Fhirdiad. Tall stone walls ringed the outside of the Kingdom’s capital and more walls divided the neighborhoods within the city.

As imposing as the walls were, Ashe could not help but thrill to see them. They’d been running through open fields and burned out villages for days. The one town they’d found that wasn’t destroyed was abandoned, which was somehow even worse. 

Ashe supposed the unblemished state of Fhirdiad and its many walls should have been as ominous as that village, but all Ashe could feel as they approached was relief. Relief that they’d really made it. Relief that they’d be safely inside a city soon. Relief that they’d gotten here without having to fight another dragon.

The relief was short-lived. 

Mercedes was on edge before they even entered the city. It was as she remembered it, she said – oddly perfect, oddly undamaged. Indeed, the citizens went about their business like it was any other day. Flowers hung from overhanging eaves. The paved streets were packed with people going about their daily chores. Children played in a park between homes. 

It was all so very normal, like Fhirdiad was somehow untouched by what was destroying the rest of the world. It was like stepping back in time, entering Fhirdiad as it had existed not just before the shattering but even before the war. 

“This is why I left,” Mercedes said. “It was just like this before, too.”

“Maybe Byleth really is protecting it,” Ashe said. He knew he was being overly hopeful, even before his companions shook their heads. 

They made their way through the clean, bright streets grimly, a shadow darkening this sunny place. Ashe kept Rowan and Fina close, even though no one stopped or even questioned them. They were free to enter the city, free to make their way past the layers of walls, free even to walk right up to the castle crowning the landscape from atop a hill.

The building towered, its spires and turrets scraping at the sky. The flags and banners adorning the stone were still Faerghus blue with a lion emblazoned on them in silver thread. If Byleth had truly taken the crown, they hadn’t changed much in the process.

Ashe saw Felix shifting his pack as they neared the structure, positioning his sword within easy reach. Ashe didn’t bother doing the same with his bow. He couldn’t leave it strung and he couldn’t string it fast enough for it to really matter. Plus, as much as Felix wanted to, they couldn’t actually fight their way through whatever forces Byleth had here in Fhirdiad, if that was going to be the way of things. 

Felix certainly knew all this just as well as Ashe did, though. That hand on his hilt was likely more nervous habit than actual threat. 

That didn’t exactly quiet Ashe’s own fears. 

The gates stood open as they approached the sprawling castle. For some reason, that surprised Ashe. It shouldn’t have. The castle was as much a part of the city’s commerce as anything else. Of course it should stand open to traffic on a busy, beautiful autumn day like this one.

Still, passing through those gates made something heavy sink into Ashe’s stomach. If Byleth truly had just walked in and taken Dimitri’s crown, they were being incredibly nonchalant about it – and so was the rest of Fhirdiad. Ashe suddenly understood why Mercedes had left. Something was deeply, deeply wrong in the Kingdom’s capital. 

Ashe squeezed Rowan and Fina’s hands in his. They didn’t protest. Annette and Felix both flickered their eyes toward Ashe, then stepped ahead of him. 

Ashe doubted there was anything they could do, but he appreciated the gesture all the same. Hopefully, he was just being paranoid. Hopefully, things were as ordinary as they seemed. 

Within the castle gates, gardens exploded with color. The hedges and trees were meticulously manicured. Flowers yet bloomed, despite the chill in the air as the weather slid toward winter. Magical? Ashe wasn’t sure, but it felt like yet another sign of the wrongness of this place. 

Paths wound among the stately foliage, criss-crossing and intersecting. And above it all loomed the structure itself, so large it was like a mountain hulking over them. Ashe had to crane his neck back to see the tops of the spires where flags snapped in the wind. Balconies hugged some of the windows higher up. At the front of the building was the grandest balcony of all, a huge platform clearly there so the king could address the populace. 

No one stood on it now, but Ashe could imagine Dimitri there with Dedue at his side. In some other life, that might have been reality. 

“Think we’ll make it in?” Sylvain said. His voice was quiet. He hunched, nervous, while Ingrid shot him worried looks. 

That’s right, Ashe realized. Aside from Mercedes, Sylvain was the only one in the group who might have been here somewhat recently. He’d even said he’d witnessed some of Byleth’s scheming, if scheming was what it was. They still had no firm answer on that. For all they knew--

Even as Ashe tried come up with some comforting explanation for what they were all feeling, the guards swept in, pointing spears and lances at the group, surrounding them to cut off all exits. 

Ashe held Rowan and Fina more tightly. Felix’s hand gripped his sword’s hilt. Annette held back on the magic, but Ashe could practically smell it crackling in the air, restrained for the moment. 

Sylvain put up his hand, placating. 

“I’m Sylvain Gautier,” he said. “We’re here to see the king.” 

“Fhirdiad has no king,” one guard said. 

“Then who ordered you to point those things at the son of Margrave Gautier, not to mention the heirs of houses Galatea and Fraldarius?” 

Sylvain was throwing around every title and name they had at their disposal, but it was a desperate gambit, given the circumstances. What did being a Fraldarius even mean anymore? What did being a margrave mean? 

The guard scoffed. “By the authority of the Servant of the Progenitor God.”

Ashe’s blood went cold as the title sank in. Servant of the Progenitor God. 

Servant of the Goddess. 

Byleth.

It was really true, then. Byleth sat on the throne of Fhirdiad – and they were evidently not pleased to see their former students at the door. 

The guards prodded and shoved, herding the group toward the looming maw of the open castle doors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic updates every Sunday.
> 
>  **Next time:** The group makes an attempt to talk it out with Byleth. Is their former professor willing to listen, though?
> 
> \--
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!
> 
> Did you know there’s an actual Ashelix Week coming up??? Oct 17-24, 2020, will be Ashelix Week. Come create some good, good Ashelix.


	11. Byleth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth requests a meeting with their former students.

The guards kept their spears at the ready as they forced the group into the castle. The sudden dimness had Felix blinking to adjust his vision. Then, his gaze swept through a massive entrance hall.

This place was familiar, even after so much time and change. Felix suspected he couldn’t forget it even if he wanted to. He’d come here so many times as a child, to say nothing of how often he’d had to return as he got older. Yes, the war and the strange circumstances following it had kept him away, but as Felix walked over the mosaic tiling of the floor, it was like he’d only been gone a day.

He remembered the tapestries on the wall. Most looked familiar, depictions of Loog and Kyphon or mythical creatures or just some battle or other. If they’d faded, Felix could not tell. He remembered the grand stairwell sweeping up higher into the castle. The guards forced Felix and the others up those steps and higher into the web of the fortress. 

Felix realized as they ascended that they had to be heading for the king’s audience chamber. He looked to Sylvain for confirmation and received a grim nod. 

So, they really were about to meet Byleth.

Felix was not sure what he expected to find. If one thing had changed about this place, it was Byleth. Strange that they’d kept the decor the same. Even the hall they walked down now, unremarkable as it was, looked just as Felix remembered – a spacious passage adorned with paintings of past royal families. 

The royalty depicted in the paintings became more familiar as the audience chamber neared. Felix soon recognized Lambert, smiling and stately, broad-shouldered and confident. And after him, Dimitri, grim and haggard despite what Felix was sure was the artist’s best efforts. 

There, the portraits ended and so did the group’s journey. Guards opened the double doors and ordered the group inside. 

A strip of deep navy carpet warmed the checkered floor. It rolled from the doors right to the throne at the far end of the room. 

Upon that cushioned, golden chair sat Byleth.

They looked much as they had during the battle between Dimitri and Claude – that shoulder-length mint hair, those blank, empty eyes, that expressionless face. Yet they were dressed very differently now. They wore robes in the Faerghus royal blue that wrapped around their thin form, ornamented with golden embroidery. A high collar fanned out to frame their head. A golden sash slashed across their body, where it met a second sash around their waist.

“Hello, my students,” Byleth said. Their cheek rested against their hand. Their legs were crossed. If it weren’t for the armed guards, this meeting would seem almost casual. 

Felix was so fixated on the image of his former teacher that he didn’t notice the figures flanking them until one moved, bending down to whisper in their ear.

Then Felix startled. Someone beside him gasped.

Dimitri spoke quietly with Byleth before straightening up again, hands clasped behind his back like he was Byleth’s guard and not the rightful owner of that throne they sat on. And on the other side of the golden chair stood Dedue, implacable, revealing nothing, staring out over the group as though he did not even see them. 

Felix’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. How were all three of them here? Dimitri and Dedue had fled after the battle, at least according to Ashe, so what were they doing back in Fhirdiad? And why was Dimitri deferring to Byleth? 

Byleth waved their hand languidly.

“Sylvain, Ingrid,” Dimitri said, “what are you doing in the company of these traitors?” 

Felix grit his teeth. It seemed Dimitri was still caught up in the war, as though petty territorial grievances were the world’s biggest problem right now.

“They aren’t traitors,” Sylvain said. “They never were.”

“They stood against Faerghus,” Dimitri said. “They fought with Claude. We were all there.”

“That shit doesn’t matter anymore,” Sylvain said. “There’s no more sides.”

“There will always be sides.” 

Byleth put up a hand, silencing the debate. 

“What a special day,” they said. “All my former students in one place.” 

Felix hadn’t realized it until then, but they were right. Every single member of the former Blue Lions house was here in this room now. They were all worse for the years that had passed since their “reunion,” but they were all alive and they’d all gathered here somehow. It was not exactly a nostalgic occasion. 

“What has brought you all here?” Byleth said.

Feet shifted among the group surrounded by guards. Felix wasn’t sure how they’d explain their purpose. He wasn’t even sure exactly what their purpose was. They were chasing the vague notion that Byleth might be the source of the turbulence in the world and therefore the one person who could put an end to it, but that was all Felix – or the rest of them – really knew. He had no idea what “putting an end to it” might entail. Could Byleth simply … make it stop? It seemed unlikely and that was precisely the problem. They’d arrived here on a whim, a hope. 

“We want your help,” Annette said. 

Byleth raised an eyebrow, but let her continue.

“We … we think what happened to the world might have something to do with you,” Annette said. “We want to try to set it right, if we can. That’s why we’re here.” 

Byleth tilted their head. “You traveled all this way, in considerable danger, I imagine, to ask me to … do what, exactly?” 

Annette shrugged, looking to the rest of the group for help.

Ingrid spoke up. “If you broke the sky, we believe you might be able to repair it.” 

“Broke the sky...” Byleth rolled the words around in their mouth, smiling with amusement. “But that was Andres, was it not?” 

“It appeared that way,” Ingrid said, “but we think there’s more to it.” 

Byleth’s gaze slid toward Sylvain. Felix saw his shoulders flinch. 

“And why would you think that?” 

Dimitri was also watching Sylvain, who withered under the weight of those eyes.

“I know you were working with Andres,” Sylvain said. His voice emerged quiet, but determined. “I heard you planning. I know you gave him money or … or something. Whatever it was he asked you for. So you must have known what he was planning.”

Dimitri bared his teeth, but Byleth put up a hand, stilling him with a light touch. 

“Certainly, we knew he planned to aid us.” Byleth’s eyes flickered to Felix for an instant. “But we could not have imagined how.” 

“Then--” 

Felix bit down on the outburst, but it was too late. All this dancing around the topic was just too ridiculous for him to withstand for another moment. They all knew that Byleth was lying. They might as well get to the damn point.

“Then why isn’t this place destroyed?” Felix said. 

Byleth merely stared at Felix in response. Slowly, their eyes faded, going even more pale, until they were truly blank, two blotted out pools of white. They gasped in a breath, blinking, and their eyes returned to their usual hue. It all happened so quickly Felix questioned whether he’d truly seen it or not. 

“Whyever would it be destroyed?” Byleth said. “I am Fhirdiad’s protector. It is safe from all harm.”

Felix had no idea what that meant or even what Byleth was implying. Dimitri smiled over at them. Dedue merely shifted his feet. 

Something rumbled in the sky. Felix felt it as much as he heard it. 

A moment later, a guard burst through a set of doors at the side of the room, different doors than Felix had entered through. 

“Servant,” the guard said, bowing toward Byleth. “There’s another one. It’s approaching rapidly. Please, come quickly.” 

“Of course,” Byleth said.

They swept to their feet, holding out a hand until Dimitri took it. Dedue was a step behind as they headed for the door the guard had entered through.

“Send them along,” Byleth said. 

The guards around Felix and the others stepped away, their aggression abruptly evaporating. They set the pommels of their spears on the floor, standing back as though Felix and the others posed no threat and never had. 

Sylvain was at the head of the group. He turned to glance behind him. No one could offer him anything but shrugs. 

“We should follow,” Mercedes said, voice grave. “We came all this way. Let’s see this through.” 

Sylvain nodded. Ingrid stepped up to his side, walking beside him as they headed for the doors. 

Felix smelled the fresh air before they got to the doors. He realized the audience chamber, quite naturally, adjoined to that massive balcony he’d seen from outside the castle. This was the place from which the king, or, now, Byleth, would make their pronouncements to the citizenry. 

The balcony Felix and the others emerged onto was easily large enough to accommodate the entire group. They fanned out behind Byleth and Dimitri, who stood at the stone rail of the massive balcony. The city sprawled out below them, looking small and fragile, even with its walls and crowds. 

Dedue lingered somewhere between Dimitri and the others. Felix pondered him a moment, the man who’d always been at Dimitri’s side, the person most determined to protect and aid Dimitri regardless of circumstance. What did he think of all this? What side had he chosen? Ashe said Dedue had helped with Andres and the red stones and Felix did not doubt it, but now Dedue stood between Dimitri and the former Blue Lions, caught in the middle of a battle none of them yet understood. 

Felix would have to contemplate it some other time. Dimitri and Byleth were both looking up, gazing at something far above the city. 

Felix knew what he’d find even before he followed their eyes. Something soared through the crisp autumn sky, circling lower and lower on massive, leathery wings. 

“Call your soldiers,” Sylvain said. “It’s coming for the city.” 

He lurched forward like he meant to shove Dimitri and Byleth into action, but Felix caught him by the back of his shirt, shaking his head at Sylvain. This wasn’t going to be like the other times they’d seen a dragon. Felix was sure of that, so sure it made his stomach coil into a knot. 

He was right. 

As the dragon spiraled lower, swooping toward Fhirdiad, he instinctively braced, even though he knew he didn’t need to. Before the beast even got low enough to reach the turrets of the castle, it just … stopped. It was as though it had struck some invisible barrier in the sky. The dragon reared up, screeching irritation, but flying no lower. It glowered down, its massive eyes fixating on Byleth. 

Then, it flew away. 

The beast’s grumbling rolled like thunder through the clear sky, a reminder of its mass and power, but it did not attack the city. It did not even land outside it. As Felix watched, astonished, it simply … left.

“What in all the hells?” Sylvain breathed. 

Felix suspected the rest of the group felt just as confused. The show might have come as a relief, should have come as a relief, but the dread in Felix’s gut only sharpened. Something deeply strange had occurred here, something he didn’t understand, something no one probably understood. That dragon had left like it had received a _command_ to do so. 

He looked to Byleth. Dimitri had an arm around them. They braced against the stone railing, a hand on their head as though they were trying not to faint. After only a few moments, however, they shooed Dimitri away and stood up straighter, turning around to face the group. 

Byleth was sweating now, but they smiled that placid, neutral smile, eyes as calm as shallow water. 

“As you can see,” Byleth said, “Fhirdiad is well-protected now. If you came here to ‘fix’ it, your concern is tragically misplaced.” 

“How?” Mercedes said. She had a hand on Annette, who only shook her head.

That sent a fresh wave of fear through Felix. Watching the two most knowledgeable magic users in the group witness the display completely dumbfounded only served to confirm that Byleth’s power was nothing they had any hope of understanding. 

“Ashe,” Rowan hissed. “The source.” 

“I know,” Ashe rasped back. “Shh.” 

But Rowan was only saying what they were all thinking now. As far-fetched as the story had sounded when Rowan proposed it, it was apparently real. Byleth was the key, the source of whatever was ripping the world apart right now. The dragons, the loss of the crests, the shattering of the sky – all of it somehow went back to this single point of origin. All of it went back to Byleth. 

“If you can stop them here, order them to stop attacking elsewhere,” Sylvain said. “You could make it stop right now. Please, Byleth.” 

“Why would I do that?”

“Because people are dying,” Sylvain said. We’ve passed villages, towns, entire cities that are burned to the ground. Every stretch of open land between one city and the next is barren now, destroyed. That’s why we came here – we want it to stop. We just want it to stop. Please, you have to put an end to this.” 

Sylvain took a step closer to Byleth and Dimitri moved in front of them, protective. 

“Byleth,” Sylvain said, “please. Why are you letting the rest of the world suffer when you could stop it? Even Gautier is barely holding out against these things. You have to help.” 

“I _have to_?” Byleth said. They set a hand on Dimitri’s shoulder, stepping around him and right up to Sylvain. “Why would I _have to_ help these people?” 

“They’re dying,” Ingrid said. 

“We can’t fight these things,” Sylvain said. “We’ve killed a few, but barely.” 

Byleth’s face darkened. “Of course you slaughtered them. Of course that was your first resort.”

Sylvain reeled back a little from the look on Byleth’s face. “We … we had no choice. They attacked and...”

“Did you have no choice?” Byleth said. “Do you contend you never attacked first? You were never the aggressor?” 

“Well, no, but--”

“I am the Servant of the Progenitor God,” Byleth said, voice rising. “Not the Servant of Humanity. I will protect this holy city.” 

Sylvain’s voice shrank. “And what of the other cities?”

“They have betrayed the goddess and her children,” Byleth said. “And they will burn.” 

Even if the group hadn’t been stunned into silence by that, they would have had no chance of responding. The guards returned at some signal from Dimitri or Byleth and this time they were not gentle. Someone yanked Felix’s arms behind his back, binding them hastily and hauling him inside. 

He fought against the restraints, but all it earned him was a slap that made his head ring. When his vision cleared, he searched for Ashe. What Byleth had said and done was still swirling through his head, but he couldn’t worry about any of that just now. Felix remembered how Ashe had reacted when Petra hauled them off like this; it could be worse this time with his siblings present. 

He found Ashe fighting against multiple guards, shouting his siblings’ names. A guard kicked Ashe to the ground, where two more jumped on him and pinned him down so they could bind his arms. 

Felix struggled, desperate to reach him now. If he kept fighting like that they might not go to the trouble of dragging him off instead of just killing him. But there were too many hands on him and they were already shoving him out of the audience chamber and into the hall. 

Briefly, Felix realized Annette and Mercedes were already out here, hauled off ahead of him. One guard had Annette tossed over his shoulder. She kicked and squirmed, but he easily overpowered her, carrying her down the hall. From back in the audience chamber, Felix heard screams and shouts, both from voices he recognized and unfamiliar ones. 

He jerked and thrashed, trying to get any kind of leverage. The moment he shook off one guard another took their place. Someone got behind Felix, grabbing him by the rope around his wrists and the tail of his hair. With his head yanked back, Felix could do little but scramble along at the guard’s command.

Voices spiked louder as more of Felix’s companions got hauled out of the audience chamber. He stopped fighting it, afraid he would only make things worse for the rest of them. 

The guards eventually wrangled the entire group down a narrow set of stairs, a stark contrast to the ones they’d taken to get up here. The castle grew darker and more grim with each step downward. Felix could smell wetness and decay as they descended into the bowels of the castle. 

With his head still forced back, he heard rather than saw the cell open. A heavy clang of metal, a squeal of hinges in need of oil, the scrape of a thick wooden door banded in iron. Then someone stripped the sword hanging at Felix’s waist and flung him into a tiny room, one he soon shared with the rest of his companions. 

Felix rubbed his sore head as the door thudded shut. It had only two small slits cut in it, like arrow slits in a turret. That meant that the moment the door closed, the group was left in almost total darkness. 

Quiet washed through the cell as the reality of their situation settled in. Sylvain was slumped against a wall, Ingrid beside him. Annette and Mercedes were healing minor wounds and scrapes from the guards’ rough treatment. Ashe hugged his siblings close, looking over their heads at Felix with wide, terrified eyes. He wasn’t outright panicking, not like that time with Petra. That was a small mercy, one dim flicker of hope in what had rapidly become a dire situation. 

Felix was still trying to figure out what to do when he heard the rasp of bitter laughter from where Sylvain sat. 

“Well,” Sylvain said, “our guess was definitely correct, huh?” 

Felix let out a sigh, struggling not to snap at his flippancy. “Yes,” he said. “It seems it was, for all that is worth to us.” 

“Why is Byleth doing this?” Ashe said. 

Felix just shook his head.

“I don’t think that’s Byleth,” Mercedes said. All eyes snapped to her. “At least, I don’t think that’s Byleth as we remember them. I think … whatever was Byleth, whatever was human … is gone.” 

“Wait, you’re suggesting Byleth isn’t even human?” Sylvain said. 

“They never really were,” Mercedes said. “Not fully. Remember when they changed? That was the influence of the goddess, right?” 

“And you think...” Sylvain trailed off. 

“I think she’s angry,” Mercedes said. “I think she wants revenge.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic updates on Sundays!
> 
>  **Next time:** They need to get out of that cell no matter what it takes. It's time to end this.
> 
> \--
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!
> 
> Did you know there’s an actual Ashelix Week coming up??? Oct 17-24, 2020, will be Ashelix Week. Come create some good, good Ashelix.


	12. Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have a plan for breaking out of the dungeon, but Ashe, Felix and Annette aren't quite as sure about what comes next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, these last few chapters are pretty dope. I hope you enjoy the conclusion to this crazy story.

“Are you sure about leaving them?” Annette said.

“No,” Ashe said. He sat between Annette and Felix in the cell, knees pulled up into his chest, watching Rowan and Fina sleep huddled together nearby. 

Most of their companions were sleeping now, exhaustion overwhelming the fear and despair. They’d heard nothing the rest of the day. Not from the guards. Not from Byleth. Not from Dimitri. They’d merely sat in this dingy cell, crowded together, not knowing whether Byleth meant to let them rot here or merely intended to punish them for a time. 

It would make no difference, in the end. 

They couldn’t stay here. They all immediately knew that. One way or another, they were getting out. They were ending this. 

How was a trickier matter. 

“I don’t know what else to do,” Ashe said. “If we’re successful, then it’ll be the right choice. If we can put a stop to all this and then come back for them, this will keep them safe from the fighting. But if we fail...” 

Felix set a hand on Ashe’s arm, giving it a squeeze. 

“We won’t fail,” he said. “We can’t.” 

When Felix said it, Ashe almost believe it was true. But the fear remained, lodged deep, deep in Ashe’s gut. Failure likely meant death for him and Felix and Annette, but for Rowan and Fina, it could mean rotting away in this cell, a long and horrible end, forgotten and alone in this dark pit. 

Yet Ashe could see no other way. The castle wouldn’t be safe. Not once things started. 

“Annette, are you sure you can do it?” Ashe said.

“No,” she said, “but I don’t see what choice we have.”

“Did Linhardt teach you enough?” Felix said.

She shook her head. “He wasn’t exactly the best instructor. I had to figure most of it out on my own. But it made sense conceptually. I just … have never actually tried it.”

Ashe swallowed. Her first attempt at this and the fate of the world was going to hinge on it. He reached out, taking her hand. She squeezed his in return. He couldn’t quite decide who was lending whom strength. 

“The others,” Felix said. He slipped away, quietly rousing Sylvain, Ingrid and Mercedes. 

Only Rowan and Fina were left sleeping, the rest deepened with a light magical touch by Mercedes. It was for the best, Ashe told himself, but gods, it made the stakes so much higher. 

“You’re up,” Annette said. 

She offered his hand a final squeeze of reassurance. Then Ashe went to the door. It seemed impenetrable, unless you’d spent your life breaking every type of lock man had yet to devise. The hardest part was merely getting the pick to the lock itself, something he achieved by sticking a strip of fabric through the tiny slit in the door, then having Annette magically freeze it so it was solid enough to steer the pick tied to the end. Still, it made for clumsy work and even Ashe began to doubt he could actually get the door open.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to. 

Ashe yelped when someone yanked the pick away from him. He reeled back, expecting an angry guard, but when the door opened... 

“Dedue?” 

Dedue filled the doorway, unmistakable despite the gloom. 

“Hurry,” he said.

Ashe was too stunned to react at first. A thousand clashing thoughts filled his mind with empty noise. His companions reacted more quickly, getting themselves up, rushing out of the cell. Felix squeezed Ashe’s shoulder, calling him back out of his confusion. 

“Dedue,” Ashe said, “how...”

“We must hurry,” Dedue said. He stepped in, lifting Rowan’s sleeping form in his arms. “They ought not remain here.”

“We were going to … so they’d be safe.” Ashe yet struggled to articulate anything coherent.

“I understand,” Dedue said. “We must leave now.” 

Felix rushed over, scooping up Fina. Ashe could do little but follow them, though he glanced over his shoulder at the now-empty cell. 

Dozens of questions crowded in his mouth. Had Dedue betrayed Dimitri? Was this perhaps Dimitri’s order? Was Dedue leading them into some new danger? 

Ashe felt he knew the answer to that last one. No matter his loyalty to Dimitri, Dedue would not deceive them like that. If he was really here to free them, he would free them. 

Dedue led the group up the stairs and out of the dungeon. The castle was dark when they emerged into a narrow hall. Fortunately, the entrance to the dungeon was tucked away. Who would want to visit such a place unless they had to? 

Dedue stopped them in the hall, whispering to the group.

“I do not know what you mean to do, but if you are going to escape you must get through the grounds,” he said. “I will try to guide you, but there are many guards along the way.”

“Where are our weapons?” Felix said. 

Dedue frowned at the implications of that. “I hope it does not come to that. I cannot get you your original weapons, but I know where you might replace them.”

“That first,” Felix said. “I want to avoid it too, but if we must in order to escape, we will.” 

“Are we escaping, though?” Annette said. “I thought we were going to--”

Felix silenced her with a look. “We did not count on being freed. And now we have Rowan and Fina with us. We have to get somewhere safe and reassess our approach.” 

Annette looked both relieved and worried. Ashe couldn’t blame her. What they had asked her to do this night was perhaps beyond even Linhardt’s abilities. 

“Come,” Dedue said.

He took them down the hall, leading the way, checking around corners. He used a key to get them into a storage closet brimming with spears and swords and armor – more than they could possibly need. Ashe selected an ordinary, functional bow and belted a quiver around his waist. Felix, Sylvain and Ingrid were still picking through the offerings; Ashe used the slim opportunity.

“Dedue,” he said, “why are you helping us?” 

Dedue’s face softened a little as he regarded Ashe. “Dimitri is not a bad man, but this path we are on… Every day it feels we stray further into something precarious.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“It is true what Sylvain said,” Dedue said. “I … I suspect Dimitri was never truly in charge. Byleth was always there, always lingering in his shadow. There was little I could do about it, but I thought our teacher might be there to guide him. I believe now I was mistaken.”

“What do they want?” Ashe said. “Why are they doing all this?”

Dedue shook his head. “The same reason these people have done so many awful things – revenge.” 

Cold twisted in Ashe’s gut. Dedue would know more about that than most, too much, in fact. 

“It’s the relics,” Mercedes said. 

Ashe hadn’t even seen her approach, but Dedue nodded. 

“The hero’s relics,” she said. “The weapons. They were made from the bones of the gods.” 

“Is that what Byleth meant when they said we betrayed the goddess and her children?” Ashe said. 

“It could be,” Mercedes said. 

“Either way,” Dedue said, “Byleth is set on this destructive path and I fear they are dragging Dimitri along.”

“We have a plan,” Ashe said. “We’re going to fight back. We think we can end it.” 

“How?” 

Ashe meant to reply, but Felix and the others had their weapons now and were urging the group to move on. 

“I’ll explain when I can,” Ashe said. 

Dedue just nodded, picking Rowan back up. Sylvain had Fina draped over his back now, insisting Felix would be more useful if they actually had to fight and should therefore have his hands free. 

They slipped back into the hall, then out another door that opened onto the castle’s grounds. Ashe thought they might be at the front of the castle, but it was hard to tell with the foliage blocking much of their view. They crouched down below the tall bushes and trees, trying to keep out of sight as they wove toward freedom.

Ashe could see the walls now. The gate was hidden, but there was a gap in the wall and Ashe knew they had to be close. All they had to do was turn the corner and get past whatever guards might be at the gate. 

There was only one.

Dimitri.

He stood before the gate with a spear clutched in his hand. 

Everyone stopped. Ashe scanned the gardens around them. Surely, Dimitri wasn’t alone. Sylvain hissed a curse. Ingrid and Felix readied their weapons. Magic curled around Annette’s hands. 

Dedue set Rowan on the ground, walking empty-handed toward Dimitri. 

“You would betray me?” Dimitri said. “After all this time?” 

“Dimitri,” Dedue said, “I did not betray you.”

“Then what do you call this?” Dimitri jabbed his spear toward the group behind Dedue.

“They are not our enemy.”

“Of course they are.” 

Dedue kept pacing forward. He held his empty hands out, but seemed unintimidated by Dimitri.

“This was not our dream,” Dedue said. He stood mere steps from Dimitri, not flinching back even when Dimitri’s eye narrowed at him. “Dimitri, this was not what we dreamed of. Do you remember? Do you recall those days back in the academy when we would stay up late and whisper of the world we wished to build?” 

“Of course I do.” Dimitri’s tone had softened just a touch.

“Do you truly believe this is it?” 

“I am doing what I must,” Dimitri said. “They are traitors. They fought against us. You were there.”

Dedue nodded. “And yet they are not our enemies.” 

“He left Fraldarius in ruins.” Dimitri was back up to shouting. “He ran off and left it all to us. How could they expect peace when they will not work for it?” 

Dedue shook his head. “That is over now, Dimitri. It’s gone. There is no Fraldarius. There is no Kingdom. Your throne does not even belong to you anymore.” 

“I had to...”

“We wanted peace,” Dedue said. “We were going to change everything. We were going to fix it.” He gestured at the gardens, the city, the world. “Is this peace?” 

As they spoke, Ashe spotted a dark blotch above them, a deeper shade of black against the night sky, impossibly large, swooping through the shattered heavens. Guards rustled in the gardens around them. Any moment, Dimitri would order them to charge in and they’d be right back where they started, trapped in that dingy dungeon while a new dragon dove toward Fhirdiad. 

He looked to Felix, who nodded grimly. Sylvain had set Fina down and recovered a weapon from Ingrid. Mercedes positioned in the center of the group, light already curling around her hands.

Ashe turned to Annette. “Can you do two?” 

Her face was gray in the moonlight. “I have no idea. One was going to be a stretch.” 

“I know.” 

She swallowed. “I’ll try.” 

She moved closer to Ashe and Felix, ready to grab them any moment. Ingrid gave him a tiny nod, but it conveyed all she needed to say – if the three of them needed to leave the rest behind to end this, that was OK. 

Ashe wished he could tell her that they would come back. No matter what, they’d come back for everyone. They wouldn’t leave them here or in that horrible dungeon. 

He spared one more look at Dedue. He’d moved so close to Dimitri that he could grip him by the shoulders now. Dimitri looked calm in his hold. They were still speaking, but it was quiet now, private, the hushed whispers they’d always used for just each other. 

Even so, Ashe wasn’t sure if Dedue had reached him until the guards burst out of the bushes. They surrounded the group, swords and spears ready. 

Annette immediately stepped closer, grabbed Felix’s sleeve in one hand and Ashe’s in the other. 

“I did not order you to move in,” Dimitri said.

“Byleth’s orders,” a guard said. “They knew you’d waver.” 

Dimitri’s eye narrowed. 

“Dimitri,” Dedue said, a host of questions fitting into the syllables of his name. 

“I’m so sorry, Dedue,” Dimitri said. 

Ashe’s gut tightened. This was it. Dimitri was going to fight them, even Dedue. Annette had to get them out now. Already, Ashe could feel the prickle of magic gathering around them.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to see,” Dimitri said. 

He turned his back to the group of escapees, pointing his spear at the guards. 

“Dimitri...” Felix said softly. 

The guards closed in, unfazed by Dimitri’s change of heart. Steel clashed. Shouts and orders filled the gardens. Magic flared bright in the dark. 

All around him, Ashe’s comrades fought. Ingrid swept out her lance, sending two guards to the ground at once. She charged deeper the moment her enemies were down, silent and ferocious. Dimitri and Dedue fought back to back, in sync thanks to some silent cue shared between them. Sylvain slashed out clumsily with his spear, but the jabs and swings still sent guards scattering. And behind them all stood Mercedes, healing every scrape the moment blood bloomed crimson on an arm or leg or cheek, keeping them fighting for as long as she could. 

The entire Blue Lions house stood around Felix, Ashe and Annette, fighting for their lives, fighting to protect the trio, fighting so they could flee and, perhaps, carry on the thin, fragile hope of fixing the world. 

Sylvain looked over his shoulder. “Go, you idiots.”

“Hurry,” Mercedes said. “We can’t fight forever. You have to go now.” 

Annette held Ashe tighter. He was sure she was doing the same to Felix, nearly tearing their shirts as she gripped the fabric and muttered her spell. 

The world vanished with a pop. There was a space of nothing, a terrifying emptiness that belonged nowhere. For an instant, they didn’t exist at all.

Then the world returned. Ashe stumbled on the balcony outside the audience chamber. He glanced back and saw the guards shouting in surprise while the former Blue Lions kept fighting in the gardens, Rowan and Fina silent and still within their protective circle. 

“Come on,” Felix said. “We shouldn’t waste their sacrifice.”

“It’s not a sacrifice yet,” Ashe said. “Not if we make it in time.”

“Annette,” Felix said. Even as he addressed her, she wavered into his arms. 

“I’m OK,” she said, but her voice was faint and she had to steady herself against Felix. 

Ashe took her arm. “You can’t do that again. One Warp was already so much.”

Despite the sweat beading her brow and the pallid color of her face, when Annette looked at him her gaze was absolutely steady. “I have to. Just get me to Byleth. I can do one more.”

“Annette...” 

“We don’t have a choice,” she snapped. “They’re down there fighting. We have to fight too. Get me to Byleth. Do it.” 

Felix took no further convincing. He scooped Annette into his arms. 

Ashe took out his bow and strung it. She was right. They were both right. Sylvain, Dedue, Ingrid, Mercedes, Dimitri – they were all down there giving them as much time as possible for this insane gambit. There was no room for failure. Whatever it took, they had to keep going. 

They started for the door into the audience chamber, but stopped short. It opened before they even reached it.

Byleth stepped onto the balcony. 

“You three,” Byleth said. “My trouble students.”

They had no guards with them, not currently, but Ashe and Felix backed up a step all the same. Their eyes had gone that strange, misty white. Power sloughed off them like some evil mist gathering on the balcony. Even with little magical acuity to speak of, Ashe could feel it like a storm gathering, the air crackling and hissing. 

“What do you hope to accomplish?” Byleth said. “You’ve abandoned your comrades. You are alone. You cannot stop me.”

They raised their hand, drawing a circle in the air with a finger. At first, Ashe didn’t understand. Then he saw the dragon drifting through the sky make the exact loop Byleth had just drawn. 

“I command gods,” Byleth said. “You command nothing. You do not even have the crests you stole.” 

“We don’t need them,” Felix said. 

Byleth smiled like tongues of fire curling. “You always needed them. Your entire Kingdom was built around them. You’ve fallen so far without them. Because you are weak, because you are greedy, because humanity can do nothing without its Goddess.” 

Byleth’s eyes went even whiter, nothing left but empty space. 

“Annette,” Felix said. 

She nodded, putting an arm around his neck, reaching her other hand out for Ashe. He took it. Her skin was clammy and hot. He wanted to tell her to stop, to be careful, to take care of herself instead. But there was no time. Byleth, at least in human form, was gone. Magic snarled in the air around them. The dragon swooped down. The guards harried their allies. 

There was only now. 

“Annette,” Ashe said. 

“No going back, Ashe,” she said. “We’ve come this far. Let’s fucking finish this.” 

She closed her eyes. So did he. He heard the world disappear, all the air whooshing away like some giant, hideous maw had sucked it up. 

The nothingness was deeper this time, longer. Even in a space with no time, Ashe felt like he drifted forever. He could not feel Annette’s hand anymore, could not see her or Felix anywhere. 

For a moment, he feared he was lost, helplessly lost, trapped forever in a place that wasn’t, a space between spaces, doomed to drift endlessly. He tried to scream, but had no voice, tried to run, but had no body, tried to cry, but had no tears. 

Then the world returned. 

The Goddess sat before them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic updates on Sundays.
> 
>  **Next time:** Fight your goddess.
> 
> \-- 
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!
> 
> Did you know there’s an actual Ashelix Week coming up??? Oct 17-24, 2020, will be Ashelix Week. Come create some good, good Ashelix.


	13. The Goddess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the world returns Felix sees Byleth.
> 
> And Sothis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think these last couple chapters are pretty cool. This is the kind of stuff I'd write all the time if I could. Enjoy!

Felix gasped when the world returned. 

Annette was still in his arms, but he knew even before he looked that she would not respond if he called for her. When Ashe released her hand, it fell limp. 

Felix set her gently on the ground, what passed for ground, at least. It was white, almost painfully bright, yet solid beneath Felix’s feet. When he straightened, Ashe pointed straight ahead. 

Felix followed the gesture. The light softened as it streaked away from their feet. Blue and green and gold and purple and orange seeped into the endless white, like panels in a stained glass window. All those patches of color framed a golden throne. Even the cushion of the seat was gold.

Two figures sat upon the throne. One was Byleth, Felix could discern that immediately. The other was unfamiliar. Her hair was the same strange hue as Byleth’s and spilled around her like a lion’s mane. She was tall and slender, almost wispy in her long, elegant limbs, and wore a dark blue gown that flowed around her like water spilling over rocks. It floated in a wind Felix could neither see nor feel – indeed, there was no wind here, perhaps no air at all, though he could still breathe. Gold shot through the dress. Gold chains wrapped around it as well, curling over the figure’s shoulders and cinching around her waist. 

Felix knew who she must be. He took a breath – or, at least, it felt like he took a breath. Who knew in this place? – then glanced over his shoulder to where Annette lay. She looked exhausted and pale, but he saw her shift a little. The most they could hope for at the moment was that she’d be OK until they did what they had to here. 

Felix turned to Ashe instead, extending a hand. Ashe took it, meeting his eyes. They’d come so far and on such a strange and perilous path. They never even should have been together. Felix himself had been bent on hiding it for as long as he could. But nothing had been able to keep them apart – not Felix’s stubbornness, not the war, not a whole continent chasing after them, and certainly not this. Ashe looked resolute. He held Felix’s hand firmly, grasping his bow in his free hand. 

“OK,” he said. “Let’s go.” 

Felix nodded and they turned to face the golden throne. They approached hand-in-hand, staring down dual images of the goddess herself. 

“Humans,” Byleth said. “How did you get here?” 

“They used magics,” the other one said. 

“Who are you?” Felix said.

“You know who I am. I am Sothis, the Progenitor God, the Goddess. I have many names, all of them correct.” 

“You did this, didn’t you?” Ashe said. “You broke everything, shattered the sky, set the gods loose again.” 

Sothis tilted her head to one side. “I broke nothing. That was the work of that human.” 

“Andres,” Ashe said. “But surely it couldn’t have worked without you. The crests, the dragons.”

Sothis smiled. “It is true that I helped. That mortal opened a pathway, much as you now have, and I took back what never should have belonged to humanity in the first place.”

“Took back...” Felix said.

“Of course. Do you think you were just born with crests? _I_ gave you crests, you wretched, crawling creatures. _I_ gave you power and what did you do with it? Turned my children’s bones into weapons. Slaughtered each other ceaselessly. Built entire civilizations worshiping crests as though you earned them, as though it was not I who deigned to bestow them on you.”

Her voice was rising, echoing through the strange nothing space around them. She stood from her throne, where Byleth still sat. Even as Felix watched, she seemed to stretch and get taller, looming over them. 

“You never should have had crests,” Sothis said. “You never should have had any of it. You desecrate everything you touch.”

Felix adjusted his grip on his sword. 

“We just want it to stop,” Ashe said. “We want all the fighting and destroying to end.”

“Is that why you came here?” Sothis said. “To beg?” 

“Yes,” Ashe said, “if that’s what it takes. Send the gods away. Put an end to this.”

“Oh, I will,” Sothis said. “By letting my children clean the world of the scourge of you humans. You will fall and disappear, like the Agarthans before you. You will vanish and I will make the world clean again.” 

She was huge now, twice as tall as Felix and Ashe, and warping in other ways as well. Her hands became claws. Her dress shredded as her legs got thicker. Her face warped around long fangs and a tongue that lolled out to flick at the air. Her eyes narrowed to bright golden slits. 

Behind her, Byleth was fading away, drifting off like smoke. Felix realized she was absorbing Byleth before his eyes. They were becoming a single, horrifying creature, something like a crest beast but even more terrible. Felix had never met a crest beast with such intelligence in its eyes. He’d never met a crest beast with great leathery wings. He’d never met a crest beast who could smile at him with rows and rows of razor sharp teeth. 

Felix pulled Ashe back, giving them space. It was clear the only thing they could do now was fight. Sothis stood on all fours, not quite as massive as the dragons, but still imposing. Her tail sent her golden throne clattering across the floor, a mangled heap of metal from that wayward swipe. 

Felix released Ashe’s hand. He only had one sword and not even a small shield to accompany it, but it would have to be good enough. They’d known they were stepping into the realm of the goddess and that a fight could be awaiting them. When he looked to his side, he saw Ashe’s bow was ready, an arrow already held lightly against the string. 

For an instant, Ashe caught his eyes. They said nothing, but the look that passed between them was strong, solid, resolute. When Felix charged in, Ashe would be right behind him. 

He did just that. 

Raising his sword, Felix rushed at the bestial form of the goddess. She – it? – howled, affronted by his boldness. Felix threw himself forward, rolling under a swiping claw. Gods, she was fast. And strong. Wind gusted overhead as he slipped under the swipe. Even though it missed him, he could feel the force of that blow. One hit would be all it took if she actually got a hold of him. 

He couldn’t think about that right now. Felix rolled back up to his feet, sword at the ready as he lunged at her side. He cut a slash against her belly. She was softer than the dragons in some ways, not covered head to toe in those armor-like scales. But she did not bleed in the soft spaces like they had. Sothis reeled away from the slash, but Felix could already tell the wound was minor at best. Even as he watched, magic glowed, sealing the cut right back up. 

_Shit._ If she was going to instantly heal every bit of damage he did, this would be a very hard fight to win. He’d need a single, incredibly decisive blow, something she couldn’t recover from so easily. 

Felix suspected that would be no easy task as she rushed right back at him.

Her speed was startling. He just barely dodged out of the way as snapping jaws closed around the space where he’d stood just a moment earlier. 

An arrow thunked into her side, quickly followed by a second. Sothis swiveled toward Ashe, even as he sent another arrow toward her. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t backing down, even as she sent that terrifying speed barreling toward him. He just stood there, steadying his aim, ensuring the next shot counted. 

Felix dove to follow. He barely managed to get her tail, using the spines along it to clamber higher. 

The feel of him climbing up her tail must have distracted her because she slowed down, her charge interrupted.

That apparently gave Ashe the opportunity he needed. Felix heard the arrow fly, followed an instant later by a bestial shriek that shook the half-reality around them. The colors wavered. The ground seemed more tenuous for a moment. The air, such as there was, vibrated from the sound. 

Felix raised his sword, jabbing it down into her tail right under him. 

She bucked, that screech pitching higher, threatening to shake Felix’s bones loose. He yanked his sword free. Sothis jerked her tail. Felix tried to cling to a spine, but she went on jerking, frantic and screaming, and his hand gave way. He flew back, weightless until he hit the ground hard enough to send his sword spinning out of his grip. 

Ashe swept to his side. 

“Are you OK?” 

Felix struggled up to sitting. The impact had certainly hurt, but nothing protested when he sat up. “I’m fine.” 

Sothis was still rolling and jerking. Felix finally saw why. Ashe’s arrow had apparently gone right through one eye. 

“Good shot,” he said. 

“Thanks,” Ashe said, “but I don’t think that’s going to be enough.” 

Felix managed to stand, recovering his sword. “It gives us a chance.” 

He meant to dash back in then, but that’s when magic started to glow around Sothis. At first, he thought it was another healing spell, then the magic took on a darker hue. It gathered like a stormcloud, crackling with purple, bright flashes of white streaking through it. 

“That’s bad,” Ashe said. 

Felix didn’t bother agreeing. He ran forward, even as Ashe leveled his bow at the beast that had once been the world’s goddess. 

There was no way they’d run away from the magic. Not in this place. The only choice, then, was to run toward it, somehow interrupt the spell before it could blast them both into nothingness. 

But even as Felix charged he could feel the lightning in the air, the sharp tang of the gathering magic. It was almost like the space between things was sharp, as though fingernails scraped along his skin when he moved. The closer he got to the goddess the more it bit. 

The cloud gathered thick around her by the time Felix reached Sothis. He slashed, not even sure what he was aiming at, not sure if his sword would pierce the cloud and strike anything. He felt some sort of resistance – hopefully some part of Sothis – and then the cloud exploded outward.

It struck Felix like a punch to the gut. All the breath was knocked from his lungs. He soared backward, airborne for far too long. When he hit the ground, his sword was knocked away again, but that was the least of his concerns. He instantly curled in on himself, wheezing around a dozen sharp little pains. His head swam. His ribs ached. His lungs clawed after breath they could not quite find. 

Distantly, he heard Ashe calling for him, but Felix couldn’t respond. He blinked, trying to clear his head, trying to make out anything of the battle still unfolding around him. 

Ashe stood before him, tall and strong as he pulled his bow over and over. Felix followed the line of the shots and saw Sothis now bristling with arrows. One was still lodged in her eye while others pierced her legs and sides. She hissed and roared, but did not actually stop. Sothis paused, shuddering back from the impact of another arrow, but continued to march toward them, a looming boulder about to fall and crush them both.

Felix had to get up. He had to find his sword. Ashe couldn’t fight alone. Surely, his quiver was running low after all those shots. 

Felix managed to get to his hands and knees, but it cost him a spike of pain that stabbed right through his torso. Every breath brought agony with it, but as far as he could tell nothing was actually broken. He could stand. He _had_ to stand. There was no other option now but to fight, if only he could find his sword, and his feet. 

The latter proved easier, if more painful. Felix tottered upright, holding his side and swaying even as he managed to get back up. Ashe glanced back at him. His quiver was low. He left his few remaining arrows where they were and unsheathed a knife instead. 

“Sword,” Felix wheezed.

Sothis was still stomping toward them, but Ashe ran for Felix’s sword. He looked regretful even as he placed it in Felix’s hand.

“You’re hurt,” Ashe said. 

“We have to fight,” Felix said. “There’s nothing else we can do.” 

“I know,” Ashe said. 

Even as the beast loomed behind them, wings unfurling to blot out the stained glass light softening this searing white landscape, Ashe stepped close to Felix, taking his head in his hands like they were entirely alone, like there was no danger, like there was nothing but the two of them left in all the universe. Felix savored the kiss Ashe pressed against his mouth. It might well be the last. 

When Ashe pulled away, he was smiling. He rubbed his thumbs over Felix’s cheeks. 

“I guess we never really managed to run away, huh?” Ashe said.

Felix huffed a bitter, painful laugh. “Guess not.” 

“Even so, I don’t regret it. None of it.” 

Felix stole a swift kiss. “I don’t either.” 

Sothis was close now, too close to ignore. They prepared to face her and spend their fleeting lives trying to take her down. A goddess gone mad. A goddess twisted by revenge. She wasn’t so unlike the rest of them, Felix thought in those dire moments. Hadn’t entire wars been fought on the continent for that very same reason? As much as she looked down on humans, saw them as wretched worms, Sothis wasn’t actually much different from the mortals she despised. 

That thought brought little comfort as Felix forced himself to stand up straight and face the enraged goddess. His whole body screamed for him to stop and tend to whatever damage was causing it so much pain, but he couldn’t. He and Ashe had run for years now, but there was nowhere left to hide. They could only go forward. 

And they did. 

At some silent cue, they rushed at the goddess, brandishing their weapons, sweeping toward either side of her. 

Sothis seemed surprised by the sudden attack. Perhaps she’d expected them to just hold still and accept their fate, but she was mistaken. Felix and Ashe might have spent these years running, but they’d never once calmly accepted their prescribed destiny. They’d fought, back in the Academy, during the war, afterward with half the continent pursuing them. The one thing they’d always, always done is fought. 

They would fight to the end.

Felix knew Ashe was just as resolved as him as they approached the towering beast set on their destruction. A massive, clawed hand swiped out, catching Ashe, but Felix saw him cling to it, driving his knife down into soft flesh.

Sothis howled. Felix dove in while she was distracted, getting close enough to stab his sword into her body to the hilt. Even as she screamed, he tried to yank the weapon free, but she flailed and bucked. 

Her frantic thrashing threw them both back. Ashe and Felix skidded across the floor. 

Their weapons were lost now. They had nothing. Even Ashe’s bow was gone, left somewhere on the ground when he’d switched to the knife. He had his quiver, but the arrows were next to useless without a way to fire them. 

Sothis reared up, looming, a tidal wave about to crash. Her remaining eye glared bright, golden and searing. Her hideous mouth opened wide, teeth as long as swords gleaming. 

MORTALS.

Her voice shook the world around them. Perhaps it shook the real world too, the one they’d left behind and hoped to save with this mad gambit. 

Ashe reached over, taking Felix’s hand. Felix could do nothing but squeeze his in return, clinging to the last good thing left in any reality. 

YOU THOUGHT YOU WOULD SUCCEED? 

Her laughter was even more horrible than her screeching. Even bleeding and partially blind, the mirth that rolled out of her was like metal scraping against metal, entire storms rumbling, thunder boiling in clouds descending on Ashe and Felix to strike them down. 

I AM MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU WILL EVER BE. I GAVE YOU STRENGTH. I GAVE YOU MAGICS YOU NEVER DESERVED. AND I WILL TAKE IT ALL AWAY. YOU SHALL BE PUNISHED, SCOURGED, AND THE WORLD WILL BE CLEAN AGAIN FOR MY CHILDREN TO RULE.

She reared up higher. This was it, the crest of the wave, the peak of the mountain about to tumble down around them. Ashe and Felix were helpless, weaponless--

But they were not alone.

Magic streaked over their heads, pummeling into Sothis. Blades of wind cut through the air, whipping blades so sharp and fast that they cut in white streaks, even brighter slashes in this blinding space. The blades whirled around Sothis like a tornado made of snapping teeth. The wind shrieked even more loudly than Sothis herself, piercing Felix’s ears.

Felix and Ashe clambered up, looking behind them. 

Annette stood, arms raised, hands pressed toward Sothis. She wavered even as her eyes narrowed and she forced more magic toward the beast, sweat rolling down the sides of her face.

“Annette...” Ashe said.

“Go,” she screamed. “How long do you think I can do this?” 

Felix dashed for his sword. It didn’t matter that his body screamed at the motion. It didn’t matter that his sword was already deep in the goddess’s body. It didn’t matter that running into that storm of knives was probably pure insanity. Annette had given them one last chance, one impossible last chance, and they had to take it. 

Even before he reached the goddess, arrows whizzed over his head. Felix made it to his sword hilt, shoving his hands through air that shredded his skin to yank the blade out. It seemed to take every last bit of strength he had. No. Not every last bit. He had to find just one drop one, just one last effort to bring the blade down one more time. 

Sothis stumbled, collapsing to her side. Her other eye was gone. A thousand, thousand cuts and gashes lacerated her body from Annette’s spell. Felix ran, raising his sword as he did, letting the momentum and weight bring it crashing down. 

He severed the goddess’s head. 

The strange not-space trembled the moment he did. 

Felix stumbled, releasing his sword, leaving it buried in the goddess’ neck. She did not scream. She did not move or jerk or shudder. Sothis lay absolutely still. 

The goddess was dead. 

Even as Felix reeled back, his mind struggling to grab a hold of the very idea of that, Ashe caught him. 

“We actually did it,” Felix said.

“Yes, idiots,” Annette said. “And now we’re leaving.” 

“Can you?” Ashe said.

“No other option,” Annette said. She pulled Ashe and Felix close, hugging them against her. “You jerks sure are lucky I like you.” 

Felix smiled, too exhausted to do anything but sink against her. 

“We know,” Ashe said. 

The world disappeared with a pop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Annette is the true hero of KAS and no one can prove me wrong yeeeeeeeeeeeeah
> 
> \--
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!
> 
> Did you know there’s an actual Ashelix Week coming up??? Oct 17-24, 2020, will be Ashelix Week. Come create some good, good Ashelix.


	14. Rebuilding Fodlan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle is over. Is everyone OK? Is everyone alive? What does the future hold now that Fodlan has no king and no goddess?

Dedue retrieved a spear from a fallen guard. He raised it before backing up toward his comrades. 

The guards were closing in. Dedue and the others had been forced to press into a tighter and tighter circle. Ashe’s siblings lay behind them, protected on all sides, but for how long? 

Beside him, Dimitri panted. It was a strange sight. Dimitri had always been stalwart in Dedue’s experience, powerful, inexhaustible. But his crest was gone now, as well as his crown. Everything was gone. He stood there with the rest of them, holding an ordinary lance, defending to the last. 

“I am glad you are here,” Dedue said. 

“I am too,” Dimitri said quietly. 

Dedue’s heart ached at the thought that Dimitri’s shift in perspective might have come too late, but he could not regret the sight of his dearest friend finally fighting for the ideals they’d imagined as boys. So many nights they’d stayed up late, talking quietly of their dreams for the future, their dreams of a world without the kinds of tragedies that had thrown them together in the first place. 

This was not that world. Not by a long way. The guards fought their rightful king. Byleth stood on the balcony, likely battling Ashe and Felix and Annette. Overhead, the dragon swooped lower and lower, threatening to bring ruin on the entire city. 

But they could do nothing but fight and that’s what Dedue resolved to do until the very last. Ashe and Annette and Felix were still fighting, if they were still alive; he would fight as well, fight until he couldn’t, until they took all that was left by force. 

He intended to make that difficult for them.

Dedue jabbed with his borrowed spear as a guard tried to creep close. The guard backed away, but it was clear Dedue was out of sorts with the unfamiliar weapon. His expertise had always been in things like axes and gauntlets. The weapon he held now was unfamiliar and awkward in his hold. Still, it took no particular tactical genius to jab at approaching enemies to keep them at bay.

Around him, his comrades did much the same. The spear Dimitri held sagged heavy in his grasp. Sylvain tried to keep propping up his weapon, but the burden was even greater on one arm than two. Ingrid charged, shouting as she swept her lance around in a whirlwind. Mercedes kept pouring healing toward them, but even Dedue could feel how the magic wavered, watery and weak.

They were all exhausted, every one of them quivering as they stood. They would not hold on much longer, but there was a certain pride in holding on for now, in making this as difficult for Byleth as they possibly could.

Dedue almost laughed. Look at them all, this former class of wayward lions, now surrounded and trembling, likely to die here together trying to steal the throne back from their own teacher. 

What a curious and unlikely road they’d taken to get here. 

Some part of Dedue was glad to be surrounded by these people at the last. He’d never expected to find a family in the Kingdom, yet somehow he had. It was an honor to stand beside them now, giving everything he had left so that their companions might have some hope of saving the rest of the world. 

Dedue charged into the fray. It wasn’t enough to just stand still and wait for exhaustion to overwhelm him anymore. He could hear Dimitri following his lead. They swept their spears in wide arcs, sending guards scrambling away from their sudden fury. 

Dedue felt weightless for a moment, swinging wildly at the guards. He felt free. He was doing what he could, every last thing he could, to see the world remade into what he and Dimitri had always dreamed of. He might not succeed, even giving everything he had left, but there was still something comforting in the thought that he’d fought to the very end, in the idea that he’d made Byleth take it by force, pry the dream from his grasp at great expense. 

The guards fell away suddenly. They shouted, pointing. 

Perhaps he shouldn’t have, but Dedue followed where they gestured.

That dragon still made loops in the sky, circling lower and lower, threatening to swoop down. Perhaps Byleth would not stop this one, yet it was not coming closer, frozen at some distant point for reasons Dedue could not discern. 

Then the dragon screeched, its pained cry shaking the very air. Dedue lost his grip on his spear, slapping his hands over his ears. Even so, the shriek vibrated through him like it was trying to pluck him apart and shatter him into a thousand broken shards. He felt like a piece of glass quivering and cracking and on the verge of breaking. 

He struggled to keep watching the dragon, but he was sure something was happening up there. The guards were shouting and running. Everyone seemed to be shouting and running. Dedue held still, watching the sky, trying to make out anything at all while his very vision trembled. 

Then the shriek stopped, cut off so abruptly Dedue gasped from the absence. The dragon beat, one flailing, desperate flutter of wings.

And then it fell.

It plummeted toward the ground, limp and lifeless, like a boulder dropped from the top of a mountain. 

Dedue lost sight of it behind a hill, but he felt it hit the ground. An earthquake shivered through the entire city from the force of that terrible impact. It echoed in the paving stones beneath his feet, sending him tottering to the side, unsteady. 

“What in all the hells...” Sylvain breathed. 

“It just fell,” Ingrid said. “Just like that?” 

“Does that mean...” Mercedes said. “Does that mean … they did it?” 

Dedue followed her gaze toward the balcony outside the audience chamber. At first, all he saw was Byleth, but they were different now. The minty green hair had darkened back to its original blue. They looked … ordinary. They looked like his teacher, his professor from back so, so long ago, the kind person who’d taught him how to wield an axe and encouraged him even when he thought no one in that Academy would spare him a sympathetic glance. 

They were Byleth again. 

And behind them, rising shakily, clinging to each other for support, were Ashe, Annette and Felix. 

Byleth collapsed, as limp as the dragon, even as the trio stood and hobbled to the railing. Ashe met Dedue’s gaze. For a moment, relief washed over his face, returning it to the boyish softness Dedue remembered from their Academy days. 

Then he, too, collapsed.

#

Ashe remembered the pop as the world disappeared. He remembered holding desperately to Annette and Felix. He remembered that terrifying space of nothingness without light or sound or time. 

And then he remembered no more. 

The first thing he felt was exhaustion. It prickled at his mind, a bone deep exhaustion that made his whole body heavy and leaden even as consciousness cautiously returned. 

His eyelids resisted when he opened them to see a ceiling above him. It was ornate, with some sort of design inlaid into every tile. 

More memories arrived: Returning to the balcony, hobbling to the railing, seeing his siblings, seeing Dedue smiling up at him. 

They’d made it. They’d actually made it back. 

Ashe tried to look around, to take in more of the room where he found himself now, but his head felt so heavy he could only blink more and try to make sense of the room from where he lay. There was a pillow under his head, plush and propping him up. Warm, soft sheets covered his body. He felt clean and tended. His body was not broken, or, at least, it seemed to have no serious damage.

He must be in a sick room then. Someone must have carried him here and healed him. That was the only explanation for the lack of pain. By every right, he should be broken and bleeding everywhere, nearly as mangled as--

He gasped, sitting up with a jerk. The motion made his vision swim, but Ashe ignored that, searching through the vertigo for Felix and Annette. 

He found them lying on either side of him in their own sick beds, unconscious but peaceful. 

Ashe sighed, bracing himself on the bed, holding his head while the world reluctantly steadied. A weight shifted on the end of his bed. He looked up to find Dedue sitting there smiling at him just as he had when Ashe had met his eyes from that balcony. 

“Oh, Dedue,” Ashe said. 

He was falling forward before he knew what he was doing, but Dedue was there ready to catch him, ready to wrap him in strong arms. Tears prickled at Ashe’s eyes as he drew in a breath fragrant with the heat and scent of Dedue. Gods, he was real. He was real and he was here and he was holding Ashe and he was safe. 

“You should rest,” Dedue said and Ashe thrilled at the feel of his voice rumbling through his chest. 

“Dedue, I’m so glad,” Ashe said. He pushed back enough to look up into his eyes. “What about the others?”

“They are safe,” Dedue said. “All of them.”

“All of them.” 

A tear slipped down Ashe’s cheek. All of them. They were all OK. Somehow, improbably, impossibly, every single one of them had made it through this. They were damaged and beaten and in some places broken, but they were all alive. 

“It seems we did not need crests after all, hm?” Dedue said.

Ashe smiled. The two of them had never had crests. They’d never been royalty. They’d never been anything but commoners, one a thief, one a hated outcast. And yet here they were.

“We did it,” Ashe said. “We actually did it.”

Dedue nodded. “We did.” 

“My siblings?” 

“Woke up from a peaceful and strange sleep,” Dedue said. “They know little of the battle. They know only that their brother is safe – and a hero.” 

Ashe shook his head. “I didn’t do anything special. I just followed Felix and Annette.” 

“If I claimed I’d merely followed Dimitri, would you accept that?” 

Ashe smiled wryly. “Well, of course not, but you did so much. You stopped Andres with me. You let us out of that cell. If it weren’t for you--”

Dedue put a finger over Ashe’s lips. “You are making my argument for me, Ashe.”

Ashe could only laugh. He hugged Dedue close again, so happy to feel him in his arms he could weep. 

Dedue pulled away after a moment. “Allow me to get the others. They will want to see you are well.”

He left the sick room. Annette and Felix were the only ones with Ashe now, but they both looked so deeply asleep that Ashe dared not disturb them. Felix had bandages around his torso and head. Ashe feared to know exactly how bad those injuries might be. Annette, to all appearances, was unharmed, yet Ashe knew how deep her exhaustion must go. After three warps and that wind spell, she was probably still a long way from consciousness. Ashe could only marvel at the strength that had required. After seeing Linhardt barely make it through two warps, they’d hoped to push their luck with two. Three was a depth of magic Ashe couldn’t begin to comprehend. 

Feet scuffled on the floor. Sylvain, Ingrid, Mercedes, Dimitri and Dedue entered the sick room, filing in around Ashe’s bed. Sylvain spared a glance for where Felix lay; Mercedes for Annette. But then they sat and stood around Ashe. 

Lastly, Rowan and Fina burst into the room, heedless of noise and caution, running right to Ashe before nearly diving onto the bed and into his arms. He laughed and caught them, hugging his siblings tight, not caring that they almost toppled him over in their excitement. 

“Ashe, you better never, ever do that again,” Fina said. 

“I hope we won’t have to,” Ashe said. “One dead goddess should be enough.” 

They pulled away. 

“She’s dead?” Rowan said. “You killed the goddess?” 

Ashe nodded, relating the story for not just them, but the rest of the group as well. “She hated humanity by the end. I don’t know if I can even really blame her, after what happened to her children, but she was set on destroying all of us. Making the world ‘clean.’ That’s what she kept saying.” 

Mercedes shook her head. 

“How in all the hells did you kill her?” Sylvain said.

Ashe shrugged. “I … really don’t know. I didn’t think we were going to manage it, but then Annette used some spell and, goddess, she was amazing. If it weren’t for her, Felix and I surely wouldn’t have made it.” 

Mercedes smiled fondly back at Annette. 

“Will she be OK?” Ashe said. “The amount of magic she used...”

Mercedes nodded. “She may sleep for quite a while, but she will awaken when her body is ready. It was a near thing, for a moment, but Annette is strong. She’ll come back to us.” 

Ashe swallowed. It wasn’t just Annette who was strong. Every single person in this room, even his siblings, had gone through far more than anyone should have to carry on their own. And all of them had survived. The goddess might be dead, but the presence of these people in this room was still truly a miracle. 

“What will happen now, though?” Ashe said. “There’s no goddess and no Byleth. The gods are all dead. There’s no crests. There’s nothing.”

He looked to Dimitri. Even in a world without crests or gods, surely he was still the rightful heir to the throne. He might be the only person left who could command any sort of order. 

Mercedes set a hand on Ashe’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “That kind of depends on you.” 

“On … what? Me?” 

Dimitri nodded. “You are the one who saved the world, Ashe. You and those two.” 

Ashe’s mouth fell open as the implications sank in. Then, he laughed. 

It burst out of him, loud and rolling. He couldn’t stop it, even when it brought tears to his eyes. His whole body shook from that laugh, until his friends and siblings were watching him with concern. 

“Ashe, we are serious,” Dimitri said. 

Ashe scrubbed at his eyes. “I know, I know. It’s just … Felix and I have been running from exactly that for so long. We only came back to try to help and now… Gosh, he’d hate that offer.” 

“Yes, well, it is his, and yours, to accept or deny, as you see fit.” 

Ashe glanced to Felix, still and silent, bandaged and bruised on the bed beside him. Felix, who’d hidden their trysts due to his title, then tried to shake Ashe off because of the responsibilities of power he’d neither sought nor desired. Felix, who’d run off into the wildness to be with Ashe while the entire Kingdom hunted him down and tried to force that title on him. Felix, who’d hardly even consented to lead so much as a battalion in their Academy days. 

“No,” Ashe said. “No, I don’t think we’ll accept. But...” He turned his gaze to his other side, to a small, unassuming figure, to a woman with more power in her than anyone suspected. “I think I know someone who might be better for the job.”

#

Annette’s coronation was beautiful. 

Fhirdiad had little to rebuild, which gave it the leisure of decorating. Flowers hung from every balcony and curled over the many walls of the city, speckling the stone with flashes of color. Every gate stood open, welcoming people from around the Kingdom, around the world.

The news of the dragons’ demise had spread quickly. Annette had launched herself into the work of rebuilding, sending Sylvain and Ingrid to Gautier, and Dimitri and Dedue to Fraldarius. The rest would have to spread out naturally from those focal points. 

Ashe and Felix had traveled back to Garreg Mach, informing Claude. They’d found Petra and Dorothea while they were there. 

Thus it was that when the world rebuilt, it did so under the guidance of three queens, rather than one king. 

Felix slid his hand around Ashe’s waist, pulling him close as they watched Annette address the populace. They stood in the relative quiet of the audience chamber, watching her through the windows. She was beautiful in a long, trailing coat, its tails spread around her like folded wings. Petra stood to one side of her, Dorothea to the other. Together, the three of them greeted an anxious, confused public and promised them a new world. A better world. 

Ashe was sure that if anyone could make good on that promise at long last, it was Annette. 

She was regal when she paced back into the audience chamber, but her quiet smile stretched when she saw Ashe and Felix waiting for her. She strode up to them, taking them by the hands. 

“I truly can’t convince you to stay?” Annette said. 

Ashe shook his head. “This is yours now, Annette.” 

“We never wanted this,” Felix added.

“I didn’t either,” she said. “It just … happened.” 

Petra stepped up to her side, setting a hand on Annette’s shoulder. “You will be a fine ruler.” 

“With your help,” Annette said. “And Dorothea’s.” 

Dorothea said nothing, smiling and crossing her arms. 

“How is Claude?” Ashe said.

“He is doing well,” Petra said. “He will be of great aid in the east.” 

Dorothea nodded. “There is a lot of work to be done. We are fortune to have him on our side.” 

“We’ll need a lot more than just Claude,” Annette said. “Are you sure you won’t stay? I could give you any territory you want, any job, anything at all. Name it and it is yours.”

Ashe raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. “We can’t help. Not with this.” 

Felix kissed her other hand. “You have always been the only one of us any good at leading.”

“We’ll only get in the way,” Ashe said. “But if you need a quiet place to hide, you know where to find us.” 

Annette swallowed, letting out a shaky sigh. “I know,” she said. “I just can’t imagine waking up without you both there. It’s been so long.”

Ashe grit his teeth against the tears that prickled his eyes. That thought had weighed heavy on his heart ever since it became clear that their paths would diverge. Annette had been with him even longer than Felix, way back in the days when he was just a boy dreaming about knights, just a misfit thief aching to be a squire. 

“You can always reach us,” Ashe said. “Always. We will never leave you. I promise.” 

“I know.” Her voice broke even as she said it. 

Ashe lunged forward before the tears could fall, wrapping her in his arms. She cried against his shoulder even as he did the same against hers, even as Felix put his arms around both of them.

“I love you,” Ashe said against the fine fabric of her royal attire. 

She insisted they stay the night. They shared a meal and a bed and in the morning, with the sun just tinting the sky purple, Ashe and Felix left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's only one chapter left! It is going to be a little later than usual. Instead of posting it next Sunday, I am holding it until Oct. 24 so I can post it on the final day of [Ashelix Week](https://twitter.com/AshelixWeek)! 
> 
> But don't worry. It's basically just an epilogue. For all intents and purposes, the plot is done. This is it! Queen Annie reigns supreme. 
> 
> \--
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!


	15. Just a Oneshot Closet Fuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a glimpse at Felix and Ashe's life after the events of the story. May or may not include a quick little closet fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. What a wild ride.

“You gave me your word, Ashe,” Felix said. He eased the spade out of Ashe’s hands, setting his gardening tools on the ground. Felix put a finger under Ashe’s chin, tilting his head up. “Don’t you remember?” 

Ashe struggled to contain the smile curling his mouth. “I’m so sorry. I must have forgotten.” 

Felix stood, offering his hand. “I may forgive you, if you ask nicely.” 

Ashe took his hand, letting Felix pull him to his feet. “Oh yeah? And what if I don’t?” 

Felix smirked, leaning forward to nip at Ashe’s bottom lip before kissing him. “I suppose I’ll just have to put you in your place then, Ubert.” 

A pleasant shiver streaked through Ashe, heating him even more than the afternoon sun flooding between the treetops. Felix kept a hold of Ashe’s hand as he led him through their garden, the neat rows of tomatoes and snap peas and strawberries basking in the summer heat. The forest shifted and stirred around them, small creatures rustling through the blooming foliage. 

Ashe took a deep breath. Even after a whole year out here, he’d never get sick of the fragrance of the forest, earthy and wet in spring, alive and bristling in summer, crisp in fall, muted in winter. Every season was somehow more beautiful than the last. In spring and summer, Ashe and Felix planted their garden, caring for this tiny patch of ground they’d claimed for their own. In fall and winter, they chopped wood and stayed huddled under blankets in their cozy home built from the boughs around them. 

It wasn’t much, but it was theirs and Ashe loved it all the more for that.

The donkey snorted when they passed the patch where it gazed. Perhaps it thought Felix would rig it up for a trip to the town a few hours’ walk away. It wasn’t uncommon for Felix to journey out there, either to buy supplies or to train some of the local kids in swordplay (a request Felix had rather quickly given in to), but that was not Felix’s plan, not today at least. 

Felix didn’t even head for their home. Rather, he veered for the shed, closer only by a few steps but apparently even that much delay was too much to bear. Even after all this time, Ashe chewed at his lip at the evidence of Felix’s excitement. 

Ashe hardly stepped into the shed before Felix threw the door shut and slammed him back against it. Felix’s mouth was ravenous against Ashe’s, urgent and greedy, as though they were still sneaking around, as though this was some little closet outside a training room and not their shed at their home alone in the forest. 

Felix paused only long enough to shuck Ashe’s shirt up over his head, flinging it away somewhere in the shed. Felix’s shirt followed, but Ashe barely managed to get it off him before Felix swept back in.

Ashe tugged Felix closer, rolling his hips up to feel Felix against him. A year of chopping wood and building a home and hunting in the surrounding forest and training the local kids had ensured he retained all the lean muscle he’d built during those long years of fighting. It was somehow more beautiful for being useful for living rather than killing. 

They broke apart, gasping, still clinging to each other in that tiny shed full of rakes and stone and the miscellaneous clutter they’d accumulated building their home. Ashe was reminded of another closet a lifetime away as Felix grappled with the laces of Ashe’s pants, loosening them until he could fit his hand past the waistband. 

Felix’s hand was still calloused and firm, and it still knew Ashe. A couple swift, sure strokes had Ashe aching. He didn’t bother trying to smother the moans clawing out of his throat. 

Felix leaned toward him, kissing up his neck, nibbling at his ear. His breath was hot on Ashe’s skin as he said, “You mean to let them hear us.”

Ashe laughed. “I most certainly do.”

Felix was smirking when he pulled away. There was no one to hear them, not here, not anymore, and even if there was they wouldn’t have stopped. 

Felix spun Ashe around so he was pressed face first against the door, then slid his pants down. Ashe expected a finger, but he felt a tongue first, licking along him and then swirling around him, setting his nerves ablaze. He groaned and arched his back and Felix pressed in even closer. 

Felix moved his tongue upward, licking all the way to the small of Ashe’s back, where he kissed and sucked. Finally, those fingers moved in, feeling around skin already tingling for touch. He rubbed circles around Ashe’s entrance and a tremble shook Ashe’s legs, threatening to sweep them right out from under him. 

Ashe took a shuddering breath when Felix briefly withdrew his attentions. As much his body ached for more, the reprieve gave him a chance to quiet the quivering. But the longer Felix took, the more the anticipation stretched into something almost painful.

“Hurry,” he rasped.

Felix chuckled behind him. He moved in close, letting his teeth and tongue play along Ashe’s shoulder. “So needy.” 

“You like it,” Ashe said.

Felix hummed agreement. Still, he took his time running slicked up fingers along Ashe’s rim, teasing him with agonizingly light touches. Ashe could feel Felix’s hard cock against his ass, yet still Felix played at being patient, at merely toying with Ashe at his leisure. 

Finally, a finger pressed inside, relieving some of the tension coiling inside Ashe even as it created more. He exhaled a shivering moan, not caring how pathetically brazen the noise was. The years had done little to dull how much Ashe wanted Felix, especially here, now, with nothing chasing them anymore, with full liberty to moan his pleasure as loudly as he wanted. And goodness, how he wanted.

Felix opened him carefully and deliberately. Ashe wasn’t sure if he was being sweet or cruel, ensuring Ashe was ready or just delaying Ashe’s gratification in order to watch him squirm and beg. 

Ashe set his hands against the shed door before him, swaying his hips back with force, making it clear just how ready he was. “Gods, Felix, please.” 

Felix withdrew his fingers, but instead of replacing them with that sweet, thick cock, he reached around Ashe, giving him a swift stroke. It made Ashe’s knees buckle. He had to hold himself up against the door for an instant to keep from collapsing to the ground. 

“You ask so nicely,” Felix said, voice dark as ink. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what you want?” 

Ashe chewed on his bottom lip and whined. He wasn’t sure how he’d manage real words right now, but he knew he had to try. Felix was holding his hips lightly, his cock against Ashe’s ass, rubbing idly, keeping them both on edge. 

“Go on,” Felix said.

“I want...” Ashe struggled to find words. It was always so difficult to articulate at times like this, but Felix seemed to enjoy listening to Ashe whimper through an explanation. “I want you to … to fuck me right here … hard. I want you to … nnn … pull my hair … while you do it.” 

Felix’s exhale puffed hot against Ashe’s sweaty back. “I think that can be arranged.” 

He relented at last, lining up against Ashe, pushing into him, squeezing deeper, until both of them were gasping and clutching, searching for something steady as the first waves of pleasure crashed against them. There were more to come. Ashe’s whole body trembled in anticipation. 

Felix’s fingers dug in at Ashe’s hips as he pulled back. Ashe groaned as Felix’s cock dragged inside him. Even with the oil, the friction lit sparks within Ashe, starting a fire that burned up into his belly. When Felix drove deeper, Ashe’s cry got trapped in a throat suddenly as tight and full as the rest of his body. 

Felix hitched forward, biting at Ashe’s shoulder again while his hips kept moving. Ashe rolled his body, trying to meet those thrusts, trying to drive them deeper. 

He was so distracted by his own efforts that he didn’t notice Felix making good on his promise until suddenly there was a hand in his hair tugging his head back. The motion forced Ashe to look up at the ceiling and put a curl in his back. His mouth hung open. Felix thrust into his ass hard enough now to knock the gasps and groans caught in his throat loose. They filled the tiny shed, far louder than Felix’s own moans behind him. Ashe let them spill out, let them bound around, noisy and joyful. There was no one to hear them but the forest. 

“More,” Ashe moaned because somehow, with Felix, it was never quite enough. 

Felix groaned, a sound Ashe knew meant he’d heard and agreed. His hold on Ashe’s hair relented, but it was in service of grabbing Ashe by the hips to pull him harder into each thrust. 

His head released, Ashe’s forehead went back to the door, but even this position did little to muffle his cries. Felix pounded into him, hitting a frantic pace. It couldn’t carry on for long, but it didn’t need to. Ashe’s whole body was coiling, condensing into a single aching point somewhere in his gut, collapsing in on itself. From the pitch of Felix’s grunts, he was not far behind. 

“Fuck,” Felix hissed. 

Then he jolted forward, driving deeper, holding still there, even as his hand reached around, frantically pumping Ashe’s cock to push him to the same edge he’d just crashed against. 

Ashe eagerly followed, shouting at their little shed, trembling in Felix’s hold, clenching around his cock. Felix’s hand guided him through the orgasm, every shuddering reverberation that rocked his body. And when Felix withdrew, he ensured Ashe stayed standing, holding Ashe against his chest and peppering his shoulders with kisses and mumbled affection. 

They slid together to the floor of the shed, simply holding each other, breathing, sweat slick on their bodies. Ashe lolled his head back against Felix’s shoulder and Felix kissed his forehead, nuzzling his nose into Ashe’s hair and breathing deeply. 

Part of Ashe still couldn’t believe this was real, even a year later. After so long and so much, they were actually here, free, freer than they’d ever imagined. They’d rebuilt their lives from almost literally nothing, even as their friends went out and rebuilt the wider world. After all the running, they’d finally stopped. Annette had offered over and over to give them a place in the capital or money or things, but they always turned her down and Ashe didn’t regret that. Truly, they had everything they could ask for right here, and more than Ashe had dared to dream of in a long, long time. 

Eventually, they cleaned up as much as they could and got dressed again. As nice as it was to take an unplanned break in the middle of the day, there was still plenty to be done around the house. There was always a task that needed attending to with how they lived, but there was a simple pleasure in that too, not quite as bright and brilliant as the pleasure they’d just indulged in, but quiet and steady and soothing all the same. 

“I have a bit more to do in the garden,” Ashe said, “but after that I can help you with the wood.”

Felix shrugged. “We have a descent supply. I can finish with it.” 

“Whichever you prefer,” Ashe said, “but what about--”

He stopped short. Felix, holding his hand, stopped a second later. On the path winding from their front door to the faint trail through the woods, a horse was stamping and snorting. And beside it, crouching on the ground petting the little gray cat who’d wandered into their home...

“Annette,” Ashe said. 

He dropped Felix’s hand, running toward her. She stood, opening her arms. Ashe swept her into a hug, spinning her around in his arms before setting her back on the ground. She laughed, steadying herself against his shoulders. 

“Did you forget I was visiting?” she said. 

“Oh … oh no,” Ashe said. “It’s Tuesday, isn’t it? Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. We did.” 

Annette just laughed again, shaking her head. “No respect. I’m your queen now.” 

“You were always our queen,” Ashe said. 

Annette rolled her eyes. “You’re not going to make up for it with flattery.” 

They took her horse, setting it in the pen with the donkey, who eyed the warhorse from the capital warily. Annette helped choose some vegetables from the garden. She joined Ashe in the kitchen to chop them up while Felix got a fire started so they could cook the venison he’d caught the other day. Together, the three got a meal prepared.

“It’s not quite fine enough for a queen,” Ashe said. 

“I think I’ll manage,” Annette said. 

“I’m surprised they let you travel on your own,” Felix said. “Dimitri had a retinue even as a child.” 

“Things aren’t the way they were before,” Annette said. “Me, Petra and Dorothea are closer to a council than queens, in truth. I can move more or less unobstructed.”

She went on, describing the new systems taking hold throughout the Kingdom, throughout the world, but Ashe paid them little mind. Politics hadn’t really mattered to him before; they certainly didn’t matter now. From what he could gather, most of the ideas were Claude’s, but they were sweeping the continent, even touching places like Brigid and Sreng.

“Naturally, Brigid isn’t a vassal anymore,” Annette said. “Petra is basically its representative on the continent, though she also saw to things back at home.” 

“So much has changed,” Ashe said. 

Annette nodded agreement. 

“How is...” Felix trailed off.

Annette smiled. “Dimitri and Dedue are excellent ambassadors. They have traveled half the former Kingdom for me, mending relationships we assumed were permanently broken. Cyril aids Claude, though I hear Lorenz is his true right hand. Linhardt came to the capital, actually. There are no crests to investigate, but he has had about a million ceaseless questions about what the three of us did and how we took down a goddess.”

Annette sighed, her exhaustion with the subject clear. “Hilda and Marianne have disappeared, much as you two have. I am beginning to suspect you all had the right idea.”

Ashe shrugged regretfully. “We were never meant to lead anyone.”

“I know,” she said. “And you did your part. But there are days when I just...” She shook herself. “In any case, you’ll be heartened to hear this: Mercedes reports that Rowan and Fina are both exemplary students. Rowan is actually quite talented in white magic. Who would have expected that?”

Ashe’s heart surged. He missed his siblings so much he could weep some days, but knowing they were not only safe, but finally getting the education they’d been denied all their lives eased the burden that tightened his chest. 

“And...” Felix prompted. 

“And Sylvain,” Annette said. “He went to Gautier.”

Felix’s face drained of blood. Ashe noticed his meal was mostly untouched. 

“Gautier?”

Annette nodded. “His father no longer rules there. Sylvain is the new margrave, for as long as such titles exist. He is doing for Gautier what me and Petra and Dorothea are attempting to do for Fhirdiad. And he has Ingrid with him.” 

Felix’s eyebrow quirked up a little at that. Annette just shrugged. 

“And what about you two?” Annette said. “Your home is beautiful, your cat is very cute, and I’m sure that shed has its … appeal. But do you really mean to stay out here? You could have a place in the capital any time you wanted. Before you object – I don’t mean diplomatic. You could have a home there if wanted. You don’t need to live out here in the middle of nowhere.” 

Ashe reached for Felix’s hand on the table. He didn’t even need to look at his partner to know their answer was the same. 

“We’re happy here,” he said.

Annette sighed. “I know. It was worth a try. Well, there are still the tournaments. They’re open to all.” She sent a meaningful look Felix’s way. 

Ashe took Annette’s hand. It was nice, the three of them sitting around a table, linked hand to hand. It felt right, even if he knew it was temporary. 

“You can come here any time you want,” Ashe said.

“You don’t need to ask in advance,” Felix added.

“I know,” Annette said. “It’s just … not quite the same.” Tears shimmered at the corners of Annette’s eyes. “We came so far together. Even a year later, it feels strange to wake up and not see you both there.” 

Ashe swallowed around the lump in his throat. 

“I know,” he said. 

“Our paths have diverged,” Felix said, “but that does not mean we have lost each other. We will always be here, Annette. You have something you must do. We do not. Not any longer.”

She nodded. “I know. It’s just hard some days being without you, looking around and not seeing you there.”

“Stay tonight,” Ashe said. It was a temporary salve, a bandage on an ache that would throb in all their hearts for the rest of their days, but perhaps it was enough for now. 

“Are you seducing a queen, Ashe Ubert?” Annette said, false affront in her voice. 

His lips twisted around a smile. “Maybe I am.” 

She smiled right back. “Well then, I suppose I could stay a night, but not in some gods damned closet.” 

“Our closet days are over,” Ashe said. “I swear.” 

She rolled her eyes. “You were literally in a shed when I arrived today.”

“That was...” Ashe said.

“OK, well...” Felix said.

Annette covered her mouth with her hands to hold in her laughter but it bubbled out all the same. Ashe joined her, unable to resist, unable to hold back when the people he loved were all accounted for, all safe, either here or in the capital or somewhere else in this healing world. 

Later, much later, Ashe lay between his knight and his queen in a cottage in the woods. In a world without gods, without crests, without bloodlines, it would have been easy to feel lost, adrift, perhaps overwhelmed, but with their arms around him, their deepening breaths brushing against his skin, their bodies keeping him warm, Ashe felt utterly at home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> Alright, fuckers. Time to get overly emotional about cartoon porn. 
> 
> More than a year ago, I went to AO3 looking for some Ashelix porn. Not finding any, I decided to make my own. It was my first fanfic and my first bit of porn writing. Like, ever. Ever. 
> 
> I didn't really understand what the numbers meant, but I was very surprised to see people reading it and liking it and asking for _more_ for some reason.
> 
> So I wrote more. 
> 
> A lot more.
> 
> And here we are, more than a year later, right back in a dusty closet with my favorite boys. Ashe and Felix may have ended up more or less where they started, but I feel light years away. The difference between that first chapter and this one is massive. I've learned so much about writing erotica. I'd like to think that if you went back and read that first chapter right now, it would almost seem like it was written by a different person entirely.
> 
> I suppose in some ways it was. I didn't have much experience in this part of fandom when I wrote that. It's been a really wild ride. 
> 
> If you've come along for any part of this journey, thank you so much. It's truly meant the world to me. I wouldn't have written more than that little closet fuck if people hadn't surprised me by asking for more. I am where I am right now because of encouragement from friends and strangers. 
> 
> Special love goes out to some of the friends I've made due to this story, friends who've offered endless encouragement: Alek, Quorn, Ron, Light, Syph, Blakey, Hyper - y'all have truly put up with so much of my bullshit. 
> 
> I'm really proud of this story, even with all its faults. I never planned to become "the Ashelix person." I just really liked the ship and wanted more content. To be posting the last chapter of a sprawling three-book Ashelix story on the final day of Ashelix Week, to have seen people draw scenes from this story, to witness the creation of an entire Ashelix server - these have all been things way, way, WAY beyond anything I could have imagined. 
> 
> This story is far from perfect. Those early chapters certainly showcase my inexperience. But it's been an absolute joy to craft this. I don't quite know what it'll be like to not be thinking about the next chapter, planning or writing or editing. It's been more than a year since I've woken up and NOT had KAS to work on. 
> 
> I think I'm gonna miss it. 
> 
> Some part of me desperately doesn't want to hit that post button because that really does mean it's done. It's over. And damn, I'm really gonna miss it. It's been a joy and a privilege and an honor and a comfort in trying times to pour my energy and love into this silly story. I'm terrified to say goodbye. 
> 
> But these boys deserve to rest and so do I. 
> 
> Thanks for coming along for this wild ride. I hope you had fun. And, of course, as always, forever:
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends! <3


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